How Saxony-Anhalt's Coalition Bargaining Could Reshape Its State Government
Two weeks after the AfD's landslide victory in Saxony-Anhalt's state election, the usual assumptions about parliamentary etiquette have been pushed aside. The strongest party is negotiating with the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, known as the BSW, over who should lead the Landtag. The deal is not yet signed. But if it holds, the AfD would for the first time provide the state parliament's president, with the BSW taking a vice-presidential seat in return.
The presidency of the Landtag is not the same as the state chancellery. It does not set tax rates or hire teachers. What it does is control the daily machinery of parliament: chairing sessions, putting items on the agenda, and deciding who gets a platform and who does not. In a chamber where the AfD is the largest bloc and the mainstream parties have not committed to working with it, that post becomes a proxy battle for the state's future.
The new parliament must constitute itself by a statutory deadline and at that point elect a president and at least one vice president. The AfD has 39 seats; the BSW has five. The two parties together have what the Bild report calls a comfortable majority for this purpose. Under the usual seniority order, the CDU, Left and SPD would be ahead of the BSW for such positions. This time, that normal order appears to be set aside. The BSW, with only five seats, has become the kingmaker.
The outline of the arrangement has been reported by the ARD capital studio and Bild. The AfD would take the presidency; the BSW would take a vice presidency. BSW chairwoman Amira Mohamed Ali has indirectly confirmed the reports. "That is also what I hear," she said when asked. The BSW argues that the strongest faction has a traditional claim to the presidency and says it will not block the AfD on principle.
The AfD has also tried to widen the deal. The Mitteldeutsche Zeitung quoted the AfD's parliamentary manager, Tobias Rausch, offering the CDU the AfD's votes for a CDU vice-presidential candidate if the CDU in turn votes for an AfD candidate as president. That would give the CDU a prize in exchange for supporting the AfD's choice. Whether the CDU accepts is an open question.
None of this amounts to a coalition government. Germany's states are run by cabinets, not by presidia. But the battle over the presidency sets the tone for the larger government-formation negotiations in Magdeburg. If the AfD and BSW control the leadership of the Landtag, the chamber's agenda and procedures will be shaped by those two parties. The third vice-presidential seat might remain empty, leaving no counterweight from the mainstream camp.
The state government itself still has to be formed. The presidium talks are the opening move in that larger contest. They show what each party is willing to trade, and how far the old rules of parliamentary cooperation in Saxony-Anhalt have been bent.