The legislative body in Thuringia chooses a CDU representative as its presiding officer.
After the chaotic first meeting of the freshly elected Thuringian state parliament, the Constitutional Court outlines strict guidelines for the temporary leader of the AfD, Treutler. Proceeding with the parliamentary session, the 73-year-old adheres to these stipulations. In the continuation of the session, CDU MP König is elected as the new parliamentary president with a majority vote.
CDU representative König was selected as the new Thuringian state parliament president. König, 42, clinched the position comfortably over the 38-year-old AfD nominee Wiebke Muhsal. Prior to this, the parliament adopted a modification to its procedural rules. A CDU and BSW proposal garnered 55 votes in a full assembly meeting in Erfurt on Saturday, hence achieving the essential simple majority. All 32 AfD representatives voted against this proposal unanimously.
The amendment empowered candidates from all factions to be proposed for the election of the state parliament president from the inaugural round itself, disregarding prior reservations for the most powerful faction, initially the AfD, as per the previous rule. This paved the way for König's election.
Under the old rule, the strongest faction retained the right to propose a candidate in the initial two rounds. The election of the state parliament president was initially scheduled for Thursday, but the constitutive session ended in disarray and was abruptly halted. Treutler, the acting president of the AfD, refused to permit motions and votes from the plenary session on Thursday, which significantly impacted the proposal by the CDU and BSW alliance.
However, the Thuringian Constitutional Court in Weimar passed a ruling on Friday evening, maintaining that the acting president must permit the parliament to modify its procedural rules prior to electing the state parliament president. The court ordered Treutler to comply with this procedure. Complying with the issued instructions, Treutler followed through on Saturday.
Given the new rules, the Thuringian state parliament adopted the CDU and BSW proposal, allowing König to be a candidate in the initial round of elections for the parliament president. Due to this amendment, Elections to the Landtag of Thuringia resulted in König being elected as the new parliamentary president.
