For the first time since the end of the Second World War, a member of Germany's far-right AfD party has assumed the speaker's chair in a state parliament — a threshold long treated as inviolable by the postwar democratic consensus. On October 6, 2026, Tobias Rausch was elected speaker of the Saxony-Anhalt chamber, not through the AfD's own numbers alone, but with the help of the BSW party and, it appears, anonymous votes from within the very parties that had pledged to hold the line. The moment does not yet hand the AfD governing power, but it reveals something more unsettling: that the cordon
Far-right AfD secures first state parliament speaker since WWII
Someone broke ranks in the privacy of the ballot booth.
Mark
So Rausch becomes speaker with 48 votes, but the AfD and BSW together only have 44 seats. Where do the other four votes come from?
Mimi
That's the question everyone's asking. The CDU says none of its 15 members voted for him—they were told to abstain. But someone voted yes. The secret ballot means we may never know who.
Luke
Right, and that's important to flag. We know the vote happened. We know the math doesn't add up without outside support. But we're speculating about which party or parties broke ranks. The CDU denies it. The SPD, Greens, and Left all say they oppose the AfD. So either someone's lying, or there's a fourth explanation we don't have.
Mark
Does it matter who voted for him if the result is the same—he's speaker either way?
Mimi
It matters politically. It shows the opposition isn't actually unified. If you're a voter who thought the other parties would stand together against the AfD, this vote reveals that's not guaranteed. Someone in that chamber chose to support him.
Luke
But we should be careful about the word "support." A secret vote for speaker isn't necessarily an ideological endorsement. It could be tactical, personal, or something else entirely. We just don't know.
Mark
What about Tillschneider, the deputy speaker? Is he equally controversial?
Mimi
More so, in some ways. He's been involved with identitarian movements, he visited Russia six months after the invasion, and he writes for a Russian newspaper. He's deeply embedded in networks that go beyond just German politics.
Luke
Though it's worth noting: visiting Russia and writing for a Russian outlet aren't illegal, and the AfD leadership distanced itself from that 2022 trip. The question of what those connections mean—whether they indicate coordination, sympathy, or something else—is still open.
Mark
Can the AfD actually form a government now that Rausch is speaker?
Mimi
Not yet. Rausch controls the parliament's procedures, but Siegmund, the AfD's lead candidate, still needs a coalition partner to become premier. No one's willing. The BSW might be, but it's not clear they have enough seats together.
Luke
And that's a crucial distinction the reporting needs to hold. Speaker is one thing. Government is another. The AfD has won a procedural victory, but the actual exercise of executive power remains blocked—for now.
El Pulso
- The election of Rausch as speaker shattered a political norm that had held in Germany for over eighty years, sending shockwaves through the country's democratic establishment.
- The arithmetic of the vote exposed a quiet betrayal — at least four parliamentarians from parties publicly opposed to the AfD cast secret ballots in Rausch's favor, and no one can be made to answer for it.
- The CDU's leadership flatly denied any defection from its ranks, while the SPD demanded an immediate accounting, leaving the chamber's other parties in a state of mutual suspicion and recrimination.
- Anti-AfD protesters gathered outside the parliament as Green and Social Democrat leaders warned that a fundamental boundary had been crossed and vowed resistance to any further erosion of rights.
- Despite this symbolic victory, the AfD remains locked out of executive power — no party will form a coalition with it, and the path to the premiership in December remains blocked.
For the first time since the end of the Second World War, a member of Germany's far-right AfD party has assumed the speaker's chair in a state parliament — a threshold long treated as inviolable by the postwar democratic consensus. On October 6, 2026, Tobias Rausch was elected speaker of the Saxony-Anhalt chamber, not through the AfD's own numbers alone, but with the help of the BSW party and, it appears, anonymous votes from within the very parties that had pledged to hold the line. The moment does not yet hand the AfD governing power, but it reveals something more unsettling: that the cordon sanitaire surrounding Germany's classified right-wing extremist party is no longer as solid as its architects believed.
On October 6, 2026, Tobias Rausch — a 35-year-old real-estate entrepreneur — was elected speaker of the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament, becoming the first AfD member to hold such a position in Germany since the end of World War II. He secured 48 votes from 82 eligible parliamentarians, with 29 opposed and five abstentions. The result stunned the political establishment, and the numbers told a troubling story.
The AfD holds 39 seats in the chamber. The BSW party, which won five seats in September's regional election, openly backed Rausch — giving him a combined 44 votes. Yet he received 48. Someone, or several someones, broke ranks. The CDU's outgoing premier Sven Schulze insisted that not a single member of his party had voted in favor. The Social Democrats, Greens, and Left party all maintain their refusal to cooperate with the AfD. But the ballot was secret, and the four additional votes remain unaccounted for.
The AfD's Saxony-Anhalt chapter has been classified by state intelligence as a confirmed right-wing extremist organization. Also elected as a deputy speaker was Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, 48, a longtime AfD figure with ties to the identitarian movement, the Pegida protests, and — more recently — to Russia. Tillschneider visited Moscow in September 2022, months after the invasion of Ukraine, and has since written a monthly column for a Russian newspaper and attended Putin's birthday celebration at the Russian Embassy in Berlin.
Outside the parliament, protesters gathered in opposition. Green leader Susan Sziborra-Seidlitz called the vote a crossing of a fundamental boundary. SPD general secretary Tim Klüssendorf demanded the CDU identify any members who may have defected, and condemned the BSW for enabling what he called the first far-right parliamentary leadership in Germany since 1945.
Rausch's speakership grants the AfD control over the chamber's agenda and operations, but not yet executive power. The party's lead candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, plans to run for state premier in December, though no coalition partner has agreed to join him. What the vote has made undeniable is that the united front against the AfD — already weakened by the BSW's cooperation — has now visibly cracked, in the privacy of the ballot booth, where conscience and accountability part ways.
On Tuesday, October 6, 2026, Tobias Rausch, a 35-year-old real-estate entrepreneur, was elected speaker of the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament. The vote marked the first time since the end of World War II that a member of Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany party—the AfD—has held the gavel in a state legislative chamber. Rausch secured 48 votes in favor, 29 against, with five abstentions from the 82 eligible parliamentarians present. The result arrived as a shock to the political establishment, not least because it exposed fractures in the united front that other parties had promised to maintain against the AfD.
The AfD holds 39 seats in the 82-member chamber. The populist BSW party, which won five seats in September's regional election, openly backed Rausch's candidacy. That combination alone would have given him 44 votes—not quite enough. Yet he received 48. The arithmetic revealed that at least four votes came from members of other parties, despite their public refusals to cooperate with the AfD. The Christian Democratic Union, which holds 15 seats, had instructed its lawmakers to abstain. Sven Schulze, the outgoing CDU premier and regional party leader, insisted on Tuesday morning that no CDU member had voted in favor. "Not a single one," he told the German press agency DPA. Yet the votes were cast. The Social Democrats, Greens, and Left party—which together hold the remaining seats—all claim to reject working with the AfD. The secret ballot meant no one could be held publicly accountable for their choice.
The election of a speaker is technically separate from the formation of a government. The AfD's lead candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, won the September election with 44 percent of the vote, making his party the strongest single force in parliament but leaving him short of an absolute majority. He intends to run for state premier in December, though no other party has agreed to form a coalition with the AfD. The party remains in talks with the BSW and individual parliamentarians, seeking the support needed to govern. For now, Rausch's elevation to speaker represents a symbolic and procedural victory—control of the chamber's agenda and operations—without yet translating into executive power.
The AfD's Saxony-Anhalt chapter has been classified by the state's domestic intelligence agency as a "confirmed right-wing extremist" organization. The party advocates a hard-line anti-immigration agenda and opposes LGBTQ+ rights. Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, a 48-year-old AfD veteran who joined the party in 2013, was also elected as one of three deputy speakers on Tuesday, receiving 44 votes in favor and 38 opposed. Tillschneider is a member of the identitarian movement and was involved with two AfD fringe groups—the Flügel and its successor, the Patriotic Platform—both since disbanded. He has maintained close ties to Pegida and Legida, the anti-migrant protest movements that gained prominence in eastern Germany. Beyond his stance on immigration and Islam, Tillschneider is known for his connections to Russia. He was one of three AfD parliamentarians who visited Russia in September 2022, just six months after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine—a trip that party co-leader Alice Weidel quickly disowned as a private visit. Since 2023, Tillschneider has written a monthly column for the Russian newspaper Vedomosti and attended Vladimir Putin's 73rd birthday celebration at the Russian Embassy in Berlin last October.
The election was accompanied by anti-AfD protests outside the parliament building. Susan Sziborra-Seidlitz, leader of the Greens' parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt, said the moment represented a crossing of a fundamental boundary. "We will not allow ourselves to be intimidated, and we will not sit by when rights here or those of the people in this state are to be curtailed," she said. The Social Democrats' general secretary, Tim Klüssendorf, demanded that the CDU "immediately clarify" which of its members might have voted for Rausch, calling the decision "disastrous." He also criticized the BSW for making "a conscious decision to elect, for the first time since 1945, a politician from a far-right party to the leadership of a German parliament."
The mystery of the four additional votes underscores a deeper fracture in German politics. The opposition parties—CDU, SPD, Greens, and Left—hold enough seats combined to have blocked Rausch's election had they voted as a unified bloc. Instead, someone broke ranks in the privacy of the ballot booth. The secret vote was meant to protect individual conscience; it also protected those who chose to support the AfD from public identification. Whether the votes came from CDU members defying their leadership, from dissident Social Democrats, or from some other combination remains unknown. What is certain is that the unified front against the AfD, already strained by the BSW's willingness to cooperate with the party, has now demonstrably cracked.
Citas Notables
Not a single one [of our members voted yes]— Sven Schulze, CDU regional leader and outgoing Saxony-Anhalt premier
A border has been crossed— Susan Sziborra-Seidlitz, Greens parliamentary group leader in Saxony-Anhalt
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