The AfD, whose 152 seats in the Bundestag make it the second-largest party, has the right, by the rule of proportion, to propose chairpersons for 6 of the 24 parliament committees, which right they sought to exercise last week when the committees were constituted. But all the other parties ganged up against the AfD to collectively vote down its proposals, insisting that the chairs of these six committees be given to politicians of the other parties.
Not being able to chair a committee deprives the AfD of a crucial parliamentary right, which the other parties—Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, Greens and Linke—justify on the grounds that the AfD does not respect the views of their “democratic majority.”
