In Thuringia, Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow had to face a vote of no confidence.
The local AfD parliamentary group sent their boss Björn Höcke into the race - without success.
Erfurt - The Thuringian AfD parliamentary group failed with a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (left).
Its chairman Björn Höcke received 22 of the 68 votes cast in the vote in the state parliament in Erfurt on Friday and thus missed the necessary absolute majority of 46 votes to overthrow Ramelow as head of government.
46 MPs voted no, there were no abstentions.
There are 90 members in the Thuringian state parliament.
Huge failure was expected in advance.
According to the Thuringian state constitution, a request for a constructive vote of no confidence can be submitted by a fifth of the MPs or by a parliamentary group.
The parliamentary groups of the Left, CDU, SPD, Greens and FDP had already publicly declared before the vote that they did not want to vote for Höcke.
As announced, the 21 CDU MPs did not take part in the vote and stayed in their seats.
CDU parliamentary group leader Mario Voigt had justified this step, among other things, with the fact that the CDU did not want to get involved in "trickery" of the AfD. With this hopeless motion, the parliament is being “misused as a stage for a show event”, according to a resolution of the Thuringian CDU parliamentary group. In the debate on the vote of no confidence Voigt attacked the AfD parliamentary group and accused it of an "attack against parliamentarism".
After the failed vote of no confidence, Ramelow remains in office as expected. Since the beginning of March 2020 he has led a red-red-green minority government, which is four votes short of a majority in parliament. Thanks to a contract with the CDU, Ramelow's government could count on CDU votes for important projects for almost a year and a half. However, the Christian Democrats do not want to renew the agreement. It is therefore completely uncertain how majorities - for example for the state budget in 2022 - will come about. Top Thuringian politicians from the Left, SPD and Greens want to discuss how to proceed at the end of August. dpa
