A Prime Minister is to be elected in Thuringia on Wednesday. Bodo Ramelow, Germany's only left head of government, wants to stay in office. The AfD wants to prevent this with its own candidate. But others are also ready.
Erfurt (dpa) - The AfD has set up a village mayor as a candidate for Bodo Ramelow (left) in the election of the Prime Minister in Thuringia. The AfD parliamentary group nominated the independent local politician Christoph Kindervater.
"I want to prevent red-red-green," said the 42-year-old from the German Press Agency. Kindervater is a voluntary mayor of the 350-inhabitant municipality of Sundhausen in north-west Thuringia and claims not to be a party. But he described himself as a supporter of the Union of Values - a group of very conservative CDU members. The father of the child is the first prime minister candidate in Germany to use an AfD ticket.
A new head of government is to be elected in Thuringia on Wednesday. The previous incumbent Ramelow is standing for re-election. The 63-year-old has been tinkering with a minority government made up of leftists, the SPD and the Greens for months.
With its election proposal, the AfD wants to show how to prevent a new edition of a red-red-green government alliance in the state, AfD spokesman Stefan Möller told the dpa. The father of the child should start from the first ballot. However, the 42-year-old will not appear in the state parliament himself on Wednesday. He said he had a business trip to Hesse that he couldn't postpone. Both CDU and FDP in Thuringia had always ruled out wanting to support an AfD candidate.
After the SPD and the Greens had already given the green light for a minority government at party conferences, the left-wing members have now finally cleared the way. In a survey, more than 95 percent agreed to the negotiated government contract.
With his targeted alliance in Parliament, Ramelow lacks four votes for a majority. Left, SPD and Greens only have 42 of the 90 seats. While Ramelow would need an absolute majority in the first two ballots to be elected Prime Minister, according to the constitution, a relative majority is sufficient in the third ballot. According to a state parliament spokesman, spontaneous candidacies are also possible in this ballot. The withdrawal of an applicant is also conceivable.
The CDU does not want to send its own candidate into the race in the first two ballots and then coordinate with the FDP. FDP party circles said that the party and faction leader, Thomas Kemmerich, should run in the third round, provided that an applicant from the AfD is also available for election alongside Ramelow. A party council of the FDP gave Kemmerich a mandate on Monday, as he said after a meeting in Erfurt.
In the past, the Thuringian AfD repeatedly signaled that it would possibly elect a candidate from the CDU or FDP. AfD, CDU and FDP come together in 48 out of 90 seats and would have a majority in the state parliament.
For Ramelow, an opposing candidate could also have advantages: At the moment it is legally controversial whether an individual candidate in Thuringia can be elected with more no than yes votes. In the case of at least two candidates, however, the constitution is considered clear: the person who receives the most votes is then chosen.
