Responding to a legal complaint by the Christian Democrats (CDU) filed on Sept. 26, the Thuringian Constitutional Court, in a rash ruling, has now issued a temporary injunction, instructing the senior president of the Thuringian state parliament not to resist motions by the CDU and Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) to change voting rules, as he had in a turbulent session on Sept. 26, but to let the parliament vote on them. The main intent of the two motions was to prevent a member of Alternative for Germany (AfD) member to become elected as state parliament president, with the first step being to prevent the senior president—that is, the parliament member oldest in age, who in this case is an AfD member—from making the first proposal for a candidate to be parliament president.
With the stated support by the Constitutional Court, the changed procedure was imposed, and CDU member Thadäus König was voted in as new parliament president. The whole situation was unnecessary, because the same outcome would have occurred had the other parties let the senior president go through the traditional procedure: AfD would have presented its candidate, who would have been rejected by the parliament’s anti-AfD majority, followed by the election of a non-AfD candidate to be Landtag president. But apparently, the anti-AfD opposition, consisting of CDU, BSW, SPD and Linke, was not confident enough that their candidate would be voted in.
