The CDU Federal Chairman Armin Laschet resigned from his office as North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister on Monday morning.
State Parliament President André Kuper handed Laschet the certificate of termination of office, as a parliamentary spokesman announced.
Pure burger
Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.
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According to the state constitution, Laschet, who is moving to the Bundestag, will initially remain in office for a few hours. As soon as the new Bundestag has been constituted on Tuesday in Berlin, the Deputy Prime Minister Joachim Stamp (FDP) - who is also Minister of Family Affairs - will take over the official business for probably one day. Because on Wednesday, the new CDU state chairman Hendrik Wüst (CDU) will be elected as the new prime minister in a special session of the state parliament.
The specific sequence results essentially from the provisions of the North Rhine-Westphalian constitution.
In Article 64, it stipulates that a member of the state government “cannot be a member of the Bundestag or the federal government at the same time”.
It follows that Laschet is no longer executive from the moment the Bundestag is constituted.
Laschet wants to remain a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament for a short transition period - to vote for Hendrik Wüst on Wednesday at the only item on the agenda of the special session “Election of the Prime Minister”.
In the election, every vote counts, as the black-yellow coalition formed in 2017 has the tightest possible majority with 100 to 99 votes.