boris Rhein has been confirmed in the office of Prime Minister. The CDU politician received 76 votes and thus a clear majority in the 133-member Hessian state parliament. This means that one more member of the state parliament voted for Rhine than would be expected given the size of the new government coalition. The SPD and CDU won 75 seats in the election on October 8th.
52 men and women sit in the state parliament for the CDU, 27 for the AfD, 23 for the SPD, 22 for the Greens and 8 for the FDP. There is also a non-attached MP, Sascha Herr, who obtained his mandate via the AfD list.
AfD candidate fails
The AfD candidate had previously failed to run for vice president of the new Hesse state parliament. On Thursday, at the first session of the 21st state parliament in Wiesbaden, Anna Nguyen only received all the votes of her AfD parliamentary group and that of the non-attached MP Sascha Herr. The other four factions of the CDU, SPD, FDP and Greens voted against Nguyen with a show of hands. This was repeated twice more. The President of the State Parliament, Astrid Wallmann (CDU), who had recently been confirmed in office, stated that Nguyen had not been elected Vice President in three rounds of voting. According to the AfD parliamentary group, she is a “daughter of Christian-Vietnamese refugees”. Nguyen was subsequently unanimously elected as a secretary of the House.
Wallmann remains president
Astrid Wallmann (CDU) remains President of the Hesse state parliament. The 44-year-old was elected with a large majority at the inaugural meeting of the new state parliament in Wiesbaden on Thursday. The CDU politician has headed the state parliament presidium since 2022. For her re-election, she received the votes of the CDU, SPD, Greens and FDP factions as well as the non-attached MP Sascha Herr. The AfD MPs abstained.
Wallmann was, among other things, a city councilor in Wiesbaden before she entered the state parliament as a member of the state parliament in 2009. From 2014 to 2022 she was deputy chairwoman of the CDU parliamentary group. Wallmann says he is married and has two daughters.
Senior President Bernd Erich Vohl (AfD) criticized the long time lag from the state elections at the beginning of the meeting. With a view to the vote on October 8, 2023, the 73-year-old said on Thursday in Wiesbaden: “Enough reason to think about whether it really makes sense that there should be over 100 days between the election date and the constitution of the state parliament?”
According to Vohl, a shorter transition could significantly increase the productivity of parliamentary work. He referred to the Bavarian state parliament, which was also elected on October 8th and was constituted in the same month. However, in the Free State, unlike in Hesse, there was no change of colors in the government of the CSU and Free Voters. In Wiesbaden, however, after a decade of black-green politics, black-red now rules.
Senior President Vohl further criticized the overhang and compensatory mandates in Hesse's 21st state parliament, saying that it was very nice to “welcome another 132 colleagues here, but the Hessian state parliament actually only consists of 110 members.” In the interests of efficiency, it would be welcome “if, over the course of this legislative period, we were able to limit the number of elected representatives to the actually intended size across all parties in the future.”
Vohl also complained about the turnout of “just 66 percent” in the Hesse election; “That cannot and must not satisfy us.” The AfD parliamentarian recalled the voter turnout of a good 73 percent in Bavaria on October 8th.
At the end of his speech, Vohl emphasized: “Representing our beautiful state of Hesse is a very, very great honor.” Expanding its status as a modern and livable federal state will never be the task of the state parliament alone. “However, we must actively support this development as an independent parliament”
#Boris #Rhein #Prime #Minister #Hesse
