The plenary hall in the Bavarian state parliament is slowly filling up, Paul Knoblach has been sitting in rehearsal for half an hour – in the front center of the presidium, surrounded by flower arrangements, next to the massive meeting bell. As senior president, 69 years old, the Green MP from Lower Franconia can open the new state parliament on Monday afternoon. But the talk of the day in the corridors of Parliament in the hours before was the chairs to the right and left of Knoblach. Traditionally, the two youngest MPs sit there as provisional secretary; this time it should be two AfD people. One of them: Daniel Halemba, 22. He was arrested in the Stuttgart area this morning and has been wanted on an arrest warrant since Friday for suspected incitement. Kristan von Waldenfels (CSU), 23, from Upper Franconia is now taking his place as a replacement. AfD man Franz Schmid, 23, sits on Knoblach’s other side. He expressed his solidarity with Halemba online over the weekend, saying the country is “on the direct path to a state of mind.” And he used an emoji to show what he apparently thinks of the justice system and public order: a clown head.
The opening of the state parliament is a ritual. All MPs are called by name, the senior president determines the quorum and gives a speech. Now in this state parliament, with the strengthened AfD, with the scandal surrounding Halemba, it is already clear how much pressure parliamentarism could be under in the next five years. A right-wing newspaper had reported, citing AfD circles, that Halemba was considering allowing himself to be arrested by the police in the state parliament on Monday in a highly publicized manner. This would have been a unique scandal. On the very day of this ceremony, with guests from society, churches, the judiciary and the diplomatic corps.
Knoblach, an organic farmer and also a trained nurse, chose a metaphor from agriculture for his speech, in which he called on MPs to show unity and to stand up for democracy. “We reap what we sow,” says Knoblach, and whoever sows discord will reap a divided country. “What we have heard in the past few months does not suit our beautiful Bavaria.” Populism will exaggerate problems, but will not solve them. Instead, he calls for courage, openness, trust and shared solutions. “Then we all reap, then democracy reaps.” It is indecent to declare other democratic parties to be enemies; there is simply competition among Democrats for the best ideas. This obviously doesn’t just mean the AfD.
Otherwise, “those who poison seeds and those who trample harvests will win,” Knoblach finally warns, looking to the AfD in these sentences. “You have nothing left for the people in our Bavarian region.” The senior president believes that “an elegant preamble in a coalition agreement alone will not save our democracy.” Democracy is like a broken window in a housing estate: a small incident that goes uncorrected can be a license for “destruction and decay.” At the end there was applause in the House – except for the AfD, where a good quarter of the MPs clapped.
The fronts in the new state parliament immediately become apparent, it’s about motions on the rules of procedure. In the future, the speaking time of the parliamentary groups should be based on the current size of the political groups. So far, the size at the beginning of the electoral period has been decisive. This is relevant because the AfD has been steadily shrinking in the past period due to resignations. Christoph Maier (AfD) used the stage on Monday to describe the investigation against Halemba as a “scandal” and the arrest warrant as an “ad hoc decision”. Other speakers also reference the topic of the day. It’s getting loud in the room. “Freedom for Halemba,” shouts an AfD member.
The centerpiece of the first plenary session is the election of the state parliament presidency. Ilse Aigner (CSU) is re-elected president with 164 yes votes. The former federal and state minister came to the head of the House in 2018. In her first term in office she had to deal with the AfD, which had entered the state parliament for the first time, with scandals and verbal transgressions, a record number of reprimands. In the future, based on Aigner’s idea, a fine should be introduced that is linked to the reprimands. She announced this in July as a review of the five years. There should also be a democratic code, a voluntary commitment. Representatives of the people should therefore also behave in an exemplary manner outside of parliament, for example in social networks.
Some changes are planned for the vice presidents. This is about chairing meetings and representing democracy to the outside world. The Free Voters sent Alexander Hold into the race for another term, and the SPD sent Markus Rinderspacher into the race. The previous parliamentary managing director Tobias Reiß was nominated for the CSU. He previously prevailed in the parliamentary group against the previous deputy Karl Freller, a member of parliament since 1982, and ex-Social Minister Carolina Trautner. The Green Party’s candidate is Ludwig Hartmann, previously co-chair of Katharina Schulze in the parliamentary group. Hartmann reportedly wants to “reinterpret” the office and fight against the polarization in the country – after the tough election campaign that was heavily directed against the Greens. Not as a party representative, but as a promoter of dialogue and openness in the face of the necessary changes caused by the climate crisis, it is said in party circles.
The AfD made a total of nine deputy proposals in the last electoral period, all of which were rejected. She always used these defeats offensively to portray herself as a victim of exclusion to her followers on social media. When asked recently, Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) made it clear: “A party that is monitored by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution cannot take on a constitutional office, quite simply.” This means that the AfD’s runner-up result was already clear before this Monday. The current personnel proposal showed how interested the AfD is in victimhood: a newcomer to parliament, Matthias Vogler from Nuremberg. In 2018, as a guest at the Chancellor’s swearing-in ceremony in the Bundestag, he rolled out a “Merkel must go” poster in the stands and was expelled from the hall. Now the AfD is proposing to lead the Bavarian House of Representatives someone who had attacked the dignity of another parliament.
With the first session, the state parliament now officially begins its work. Of the 203 elected representatives, 78 are new. With an average age of 50, it has become younger and less academic; there are more people without a university degree. But only a quarter of MPs are female. This is less than in the already male-heavy parliament with a proportion of women of 26.8 percent and even less than in the composition from 2013 to 2018, when the proportion of women was almost 30 percent.