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Thuringia's Prime Minister Ramelow with AfD parliamentary group leader Höcke in March 2020
Photo: Bodo Schackow / dpa
After the failed organization of new elections in Thuringia, the AfD attacked Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (left) with a vote of no confidence.
As the AfD parliamentary group announced, an application for a constructive vote of no confidence had been submitted.
The parliamentary group leader Björn Höcke wants to run against Ramelow for the office of prime minister.
According to the Thuringian constitution, the Landtag in Erfurt can only express mistrust of the Prime Minister by electing a successor with a majority of its members.
"One fifth of the MPs or a parliamentary group can introduce the motion," it says.
There must be a minimum of three and a maximum of ten days between the application and the election.
The voting is secret.
It is unclear whether this will happen in this week's state parliament session.
Chances for the AfD seem slim
Höcke's election is now considered unlikely - the CDU parliamentary group made it clear that they will not vote for the AfD right wing.
"We will not get involved in the transparent games of the AfD," said the parliamentary group according to the dpa news agency.
Left, SPD, Greens and CDU together have 63 of the 90 votes in the state parliament, the AfD is the second largest parliamentary group after the Left with 22 MPs.
Ramelow is the only Prime Minister nationwide who belongs to the left.
He was elected for the first time in 2014. He currently leads a red-red-green minority government, which lacks four votes in the state parliament for a majority of its own.
So far, it has been dependent on votes from the CDU parliamentary group.
The so-called stability pact between red-red-green and the CDU is to expire with the parliamentary summer break.
Höcke had already stood against the left-wing politician in the prime ministerial election in March 2020, but then withdrew in the third ballot.
In the past, he was classified by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a representative of the disbanded right-wing extremist wing of the AfD.
Greens parliamentary group leader calls AfD request a provocation
The leader of the Greens, Astrid Rothe-Beinlich, wrote on Twitter: »Fascist Höcke in megalomania.
Now he wants to be #MP.
There is only one thing: say no. ”She called the AfD application a provocation.
The AfD parliamentary group, on the other hand, stated: "With the constructive vote of no confidence we have requested, we want to create the formal prerequisites for ending the failed minority coalition of Bodo Ramelow." .
The left and the Greens canceled the state parliament dissolution requested together with the SPD and CDU on Friday because the two-thirds majority required by the constitution beyond AfD votes was uncertain.
After the debacle in the election of short-term Prime Minister Thomas Kemmerich (FDP) last year, there should be no risk that AfD votes could make the difference even in an early election of the parliament, it was said by the parliamentary groups.
The CDU now blamed the left for the AfD's vote of no confidence.
The attempt by the AfD to bring the parliament to the front again resulted from the fact that the left "thwarted the vote on the dissolution of the Thuringian state parliament," said the CDU's parliamentary manager Andreas Bühl.
The state election, which was planned along with the federal election on September 26th, also fell through.
It should ensure clear majorities in Erfurt.
fek / dpa
