Left-wing MP André Blechschmidt failed in an election as a member of a committee that monitors the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The 67-year-old did not achieve the necessary two-thirds majority in parliament on Thursday.
The members of the state parliament thus failed to end a blockade of the so-called parliamentary control commission, which is supposed to control the domestic secret service in Thuringia. The committee should have been re-formed years ago, but candidates kept failing in elections.