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AfD politician Bollmann

Photo: Axel Heimken / dpa

The AfD has once again failed in its attempt to obtain a vice-presidential position in the Bundestag. Your candidate Gereon Bollmann only received 84 yes votes. 578 MPs voted against the 70-year-old and 15 MPs abstained.

Since entering the Bundestag in 2017, the AfD is the only faction that has never been represented in the parliamentary presidium. All candidates fell short of the required majority.

The AfD is also still not represented in the parliamentary control committee responsible for the secret services. Steffen Janich, who she nominated, also clearly missed the necessary majority.

The fact that the AfD does not chair any of the Bundestag committees is also a concern for the judiciary. On Wednesday, the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe heard, among other things, whether the party's equal participation in parliament was violated because the AfD did not provide a committee chairman.

Several state associations of the AfD are being observed by the constitutional protection authorities as suspected cases due to right-wing extremist activities of their party members. The other parliamentary groups therefore want to have as little to do as possible with the party in the Bundestag, which is becoming increasingly radical, and therefore deny it access to the committees.

Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD) had admitted in the past that the repeated vote against the AfD did not correspond to parliamentary tradition, but that the party also had no right to the post. “It is part of the core of parliamentary democracy that, in accordance with Article 38 of the Basic Law, members of parliament are free to exercise their mandate and therefore decide autonomously who they elect to the individual committees of the Bundestag,” says Bas.

According to Parliament's Rules of Procedure, each political group is entitled to chair committees, depending on their strength. The party is therefore entitled to three committee head positions, but its candidates have repeatedly failed in elections. A decision on the matter will probably only be made in a few months.

fek/dpa