The AfD in the German state of Thuringia is sending its regional party and faction leader Björn Höcke to the Prime Minister election on Wednesday. The AfD faction announced today in Erfurt. Höcke is thus competing against the left-wing politician Bodo Ramelow, whose red-red-green alliance in the Thuringian state parliament has no majority.
Ramelow lacks four votes for an absolute majority, which he wants to get from the ranks of the CDU or the FDP in the first ballot. Höcke is considered the spokesman for the right-wing national wing of the AfD, which the Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified as a suspected case in the field of right-wing extremism. The AfD represents the second largest parliamentary group with 22 members of parliament.
The AfD’s acting in the Prime Minister election on February 5 had triggered a political quake. The AfD dropped its own candidate in the third ballot and instead elected the FDP politician Thomas Kemmerich as the new head of government. For the first time, AfD votes were decisive for the election of a prime minister in Germany.
