2024-09-28 21:49:26
After scandal, heated arguments and a court decision, the state parliament in Thuringia was successfully constituted on Saturday.
The CDU politician Thadäus König is the new President of the Thuringian Parliament. The 42-year-old was elected with 54 votes. The AfD candidate Wiebke Muhsal won 32 votes – as many as the AfD has members in the state parliament. One MP abstained.
König has been sitting for the CDU in the Thuringian state parliament since 2019. At that time, he won a direct mandate in the Eichsfeld constituency with 49 percent – beating AfD leader Björn Höcke.
The CDU, BSW, Left and SPD clearly rejected the AfD candidate Wiebke Muhsal before the election. The 38-year-old lawyer sat in the state parliament for the AfD from 2014 to 2019. In 2018 she was legally convicted of fraud – she had cheated the Thuringian parliament. The Higher Regional Court found it proven that she had predated an employee’s employment contract by two months in 2014 in order to receive additional money from the state parliament administration.
The President of the State Parliament represents the parliament in Thuringia; he can convene the State Parliament at any time and heads the State Parliament administration. In a prime ministerial election, the president is responsible for ensuring that everything runs smoothly.
Muhsal was also not elected as Vice President of the State Parliament. 32 MPs voted for her, 41 against her, 14 abstained. However, BSW politician Steffen Quasebarth (59 votes for, 12 against, 15 abstentions, 1 invalid), left-wing politician Lena Sanye Güngör (46 votes for, 34 against, 6 abstentions, 1 invalid) and SPD politician Cornelia were appointed as vice president Urban (63 votes for, 14 against, 9 abstentions, 1 invalid).
König: Democracy also lives “from respect and decency”
In his opening speech, the new State Parliament President König first emphasized the importance of non-partisanship in his office. “I sit in front of you, but not above you.” He wanted to “unwaveringly” uphold the principles of non-partisanship and equality in his dealings with every member of parliament. “I will do everything I can to ensure that the Thuringian state parliament regains trust and gets into calmer waters,” promised König.
He recalled the Nazi and SED past and commemorated the victims of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Every person, regardless of origin, faith and status, has an inalienable dignity. “This dignity is the standard for all state action.” And: “Democracy thrives on exchange, on the struggle for the best ideas, but also on respect and decency,” says König.
The constituent session of the newly elected Thuringian state parliament was interrupted on Thursday due to scandal and heated arguments between the AfD and the CDU, BSW, the Left and the SPD. The Constitutional Court had to decide in an expedited manner.
At the beginning of the meeting on Saturday, AfD senior president Treutler read out the court decision that criticized his actions on Thursday and the court’s instructions for the course of the meeting. He said, “I’ll stick to it.”
Afterwards, the discussion was quick, calm and orderly. A motion to change the CDU and BSW’s rules of procedure was accepted. Only the AfD voted against it with 32 votes. This means that all parliamentary groups can nominate candidates from the first round of voting in the election of the President of the State Parliament.
The meeting was interrupted on Thursday after a dispute between the AfD and the other parties escalated. At the meeting, AfD senior president Jürgen Treutler refused to allow a motion from the plenary session to be voted on. He justified this by saying that first the President of the State Parliament had to be elected and the Parliament had to be constituted. The CDU then went to the state constitutional court.
The court confirmed the CDU’s legal assessment in an expedited procedure. With his decision on Friday evening, Treutler was obliged to have parliament vote on an updated agenda before the election of the state parliament president. According to the court, the state parliament may also change its rules of procedure before the leadership of the state parliament is elected.