Güler suspects CDU votes for AfD politician in Saxony-Anhalt
The secret ballot gave Tobias Rausch four more votes than the AfD and BSW have together, but the source of those votes has not been established.
German CDU politician Serap Güler suspects that CDU delegates in Saxony-Anhalt voted for AfD politician Tobias Rausch for the presidency of the state parliament. Rausch received 48 votes in the secret ballot, while the AfD and BSW together hold 44 seats.
Güler said in an interview with RTL and n-tv that “one CDU member or another” must have supported Rausch’s election. In her view, the party should not excuse this. Her statement is a political assessment: because the ballot was secret, it cannot be established which individual MPs voted for Rausch.
Saxony-Anhalt’s Landtag elected Rausch president on Tuesday during the first sitting of the new parliamentary term. Of the 83 elected delegates, 82 were present. The official result records 48 votes for Rausch, 29 against and five abstentions. He thus became the first AfD politician to become president of a German state parliament.
The AfD parliamentary group has 39 seats in the new parliament. The BSW had announced in advance that it would support Rausch and has five seats. Their combined total is therefore 44, four fewer than the number of votes Rausch received. According to Deutschlandfunk, the CDU parliamentary group advised its members to abstain, but the result does not show who followed that advice.
The extra votes have sparked a debate in Berlin and Magdeburg about the so-called Brandmauer against the AfD. CDU parliamentary group leader Thorsten Frei described the assumption that CDU members voted for Rausch as speculation, according to Tagesschau, precisely because the ballot was secret. CDU politician Sven Schulze also said that nobody in his parliamentary group had announced that they would vote for Rausch.
For Germany, the issue goes beyond filling a single parliamentary post. The president leads debates and represents the parliament, but is not part of the state government. At the same time, the election is seen as a test of whether parties can maintain their rejection of cooperation with the AfD in secret ballots as well.
The debate carries extra weight because Saxony-Anhalt’s domestic intelligence service classifies the regional AfD as ‘gesichert rechtsextrem’, according to Deutschlandfunk. This is a classification by the German security service, not a court ruling about individual CDU voters. For Dutch readers, the key point is that a formal parliamentary office was awarded through a secret ballot, while political responsibility for the four extra votes cannot for now be established.
One story, several perspectives
What is established
- Tobias Rausch of the AfD became president of the Landtag of Saxony-Anhalt with 48 votes.
- The AfD and BSW together hold 44 seats in parliament.
- The ballot was secret and the source of the four extra votes has not been established.
- Serap Güler suspects that CDU delegates voted for Rausch; CDU politicians call this speculation.
- The domestic intelligence service in Saxony-Anhalt classifies the regional AfD as gesichert rechtsextrem.
Left
Arguments A party classified as far-right by the security service should not receive extra legitimacy through votes from established parties. CDU delegates should publicly account for themselves if they knowingly helped the AfD.
Values Protecting the democratic rule of law, historical responsibility and preventing the normalisation of the far right.
Consequences A firm rejection can keep the political boundary around the AfD clear, but may also further harden parliamentary cooperation.
Centre
Arguments The president was elected through a formal, secret parliamentary ballot. Until it is known who voted for Rausch, parties must distinguish between an established result and political suspicions.
Values Institutional care, evidence over insinuation and respect for parliamentary procedures.
Consequences This approach prevents unfounded accusations, but leaves open the question of how parties can make their agreements against cooperation with the AfD verifiable.
Right
Arguments According to this perspective, the AfD is a legal party with a substantial electoral mandate, and its representatives should be treated under the same parliamentary rules as representatives of other groups. A secret ballot must not be declared invalid after the fact because the result is politically uncomfortable.
Values Equal parliamentary treatment, the voters’ mandate and restraint in applying exclusion.
Consequences This approach may give the AfD more institutional space, but critics say it increases the risk that a party classified as far-right by the security service will be normalised.
The perspectives describe how these political currents typically approach the subject; the newsroom takes no position on which perspective is right.
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The vote totals and seat numbers have been confirmed by the state parliament and the official election data. Possible CDU support is presented as Güler’s and other politicians’ suspicion, not as an established fact.
- confirmed Tobias Rausch became president of the Landtag of Saxony-Anhalt with 48 votes. — The Landtag’s official website records 48 votes in favour, 29 against and five abstentions. source
- confirmed The AfD and BSW together hold 44 seats in parliament. — The official seat distribution records 39 AfD seats and five BSW seats. source
- confirmed Serap Güler suspects that CDU delegates voted for Rausch. — t-online/dpa quotes Güler after her interview with RTL and n-tv; this is her assessment. source
- confirmed The ballot was secret, meaning that the source of the extra votes cannot be established. — Deutschlandfunk and Tagesschau describe the ballot as secret and say that the source of the extra votes is unclear. source
- confirmed The regional AfD in Saxony-Anhalt has been classified as gesichert rechtsextrem by the security service. — Deutschlandfunk reports this classification by the Verfassungsschutz. source
Editor's note
The result, seat distribution and Güler’s statement are certain. What remains uncertain is which parties or individual delegates supplied the four extra votes; the ballot was secret.Sources
- Landtag der 9. Wahlperiode hat sich konstituiert — Landtag von Sachsen-Anhalt
- CDU-Stimmen für AfD-Politiker: Güler hat eine Vermutung — t-online/dpa
- Debatte um CDU-Abstimmungsverhalten nach Wahl von AfD-Politikern ins Landtagspraesidium — Deutschlandfunk
- Ärger in Berlin nach AfD-Erfolg in Sachsen-Anhalt — Tagesschau
- Sitzverteilung im Landtag von Sachsen-Anhalt 2026 — Landeswahlleiterin Sachsen-Anhalt
More on this in Dutch media
- De Telegraaf — „duitsland saksen-anhalt”
- AD — „duitsland saksen-anhalt”
- de Volkskrant — „duitsland saksen-anhalt”