First AfD state parliament president elected with 48 votes
Tobias Rausch of the AfD was elected president of the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt in Magdeburg on Tuesday 6 October 2026. It is the first time anywhere in Germany that the AfD holds the presidency of a state parliament. The 35 year old won in the first round of a secret ballot with 48 of the 82 votes cast. 29 members voted against him and 5 abstained.
The AfD has 39 seats in the new parliament. The BSW, which had announced it would back Rausch, has 5. That means Rausch received 4 more votes than the two groups have seats together. The CDU leadership had advised its 15 members to abstain, while the SPD, the Greens and the Left had said they would vote against him.
The parliament president chairs the sessions and formally holds the highest office in the state. Rausch is currently parliamentary manager of the AfD group and general secretary of the party in Saxony-Anhalt. In his first speech he tried to calm concerns about how he will run the office and promised to lead "as president of the entire state parliament", not of one group.
What changes now: the vote for a new state premier was not on the agenda of this first session. AfD election winner Ulrich Siegmund has said he will stand in December and expects to win a majority, although the other parties reject a coalition with the AfD. Until a new premier is elected, Sven Schulze of the CDU stays in office as acting premier. The AfD came first in the state election on 6 September 2026 but missed an absolute majority.