Constitution of parliament: Bas elected President of the Bundestag

Status: 10/26/2021 1:57 p.m.

In its constituent session, the Bundestag elected the SPD politician Bärbel Bas as President of the Bundestag. The 53-year-old succeeds Wolfgang Schäuble.

The SPD politician Bärbel Bas is the new President of the Bundestag. The 53-year-old health politician received a large majority in the constituent session of parliament. It received 576 of a total of 724 votes – that corresponds to 79.6 percent. 90 parliamentarians voted no, 58 abstained.

Bas succeeds Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) and is the third woman in the state’s second highest office after the SPD politician Annemarie Renger and the CDU politician Rita Süssmuth. She has been in the Bundestag since 2009 and was deputy leader of the SPD parliamentary group in the last legislative period.

Kristin Becker, ARD Berlin, on the election of the new President of the Bundestag Bas

daily news 2 p.m., 10/26/2021

Suffrage reform and understandable language

In her inaugural speech, she spoke out in favor of reforming the electoral law in order not to let the Bundestag become even bigger. In addition, she called for respectful treatment in parliament and promised to be “the president of all members of parliament”. But politicians must also remain in dialogue with the citizens and listen to them.

To this end, the MPs should not hide behind complicated phrases and formulations, but should speak a language that can be understood by everyone. “Politics is only good if it is also understandable.”

One third women

The Green politician Claudia Roth had previously welcomed Bas’ nomination as an “important signal”. “This is more than a side note,” said Roth im Deutschlandfunk. Because even with a slightly increased proportion of women of 34.7 percent, there is still a “bias” in the representation of the female population in the Bundestag. The proportion of women among all party members is even lower, however, at just under 30 percent. Even among the Greens, only 41 percent of all party members are women.

In all likelihood, only one man will be represented in the Bundestag presidium, since all parties except the FDP and the AfD have set up women. It is expected that the AfD candidate Michael Kaufmann will miss the majority.

XXL parliament

The MPs had previously decided on the rules of procedure. The 20th German Bundestag has 736 members, making it the largest in the history of the Federal Republic; 279 members were newly elected to parliament. The previous set of rules has largely been adopted in the new rules of procedure. All parliamentary groups except the AfD, which abstained, voted for this. The rules of procedure regulate, among other things, the election of a new presidium, the formation of parliamentary groups and the course of the meetings. It was also decided again that each parliamentary group should be represented by a vice-post in the presidium.

The special regulations due to the corona pandemic will be extended to the end of the year with the new version of the rules of procedure. This means that the option of taking part in committee meetings and voting there using electronic means of communication remains. The previous special regulation that the Bundestag has a quorum when a quarter of its members are present is no longer applicable.

AfD MPs refuse 3G

At the meeting, however, around two dozen MPs did not sit in the plenary hall because they do not want to accept the current 3G regulation. They therefore had to take a seat in a specially reserved grandstand. There were 23 parliamentarians sitting there – all of whom belong to the AfD. The parliamentary groups had previously jointly decided that only those MPs who had been vaccinated, recovered or tested for the corona virus at short notice were allowed to enter the lower area of ​​the plenary hall in the Reichstag building.

Federal government now executive

Since a new federal government has not yet been formed, the previous Chancellor Angela Merkel will continue to run the business until a successor is appointed. In the afternoon, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier wants to hand over the dismissal certificates to the previous cabinet. Merkel and the ministers will be in office until a new Federal Chancellor is elected.

Bärbel Bas is the new President of the Bundestag

Nina Amin, ARD Berlin, October 26, 2021 1:59 p.m.

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