Wolfgang Kubicki: “Madam President, I am very happy to accept the election. And next time, I’ll choose myself too. Thanks very much.” (Laughter in plenary)
At the first meeting in the new Bundestag, SPD politician Bärbel Bas was elected as the new Bundestag President. The new vice-presidents have now also been determined:
Claudia Roth and Wolfang Kubicki were both re-elected. Roth from Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen has been Vice President since 2013, Kubicki since 2017.
When FDP MP Wolfgang Kubicki was asked whether he would accept the election, his answer caused laughter in the plenary.
Bärbel Bas: “Mr. Kubicki, will you accept the election?”
Wolfgang Kubicki: “I am very happy to accept the election. And next time, I’ll choose myself too. Thanks very much.”
Wolfgang Kubicki indirectly implies Roth that she chose herself. Because Claudia Roth was elected with one more vote, she received 565 votes and Wolfgang Kubicki 564 votes.
Petra Pau was also re-elected by the Left. CDU politician Yvonne Magwas and SPD MP Aydan Özoguz are new as Vice-Presidents in the Bundestag. In contrast, the Thuringian AfD member Michael Kaufmann was not elected.
For the third time in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bärbel Bas had previously been elected President of the Bundestag. The 53-year-old SPD politician received 576 of 724 votes. 90 MPs voted against and 58 abstained. Bärbel Bas has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2009 and was deputy chairwoman of the SPD parliamentary group from September 2019 to October 2021, a member of the parliamentary left.