BERLIN: Germany’s new Parliament elected Wolfgang Schaeuble, the country’s longtime finance minister, as its speaker Tuesday while the nationalist Alternative for Germany party declared that a “new era” had begun as its lawmakers took their seats for the first time.
The opening session provided a taste of a more raucous atmosphere under the dome of Berlin’s Reichstag building, even though a new government will not be in place for weeks or even months.
Schaeuble, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc, told lawmakers that a respectful style would be important in the new Parliament.
“Democratic argument is necessary, but it is argument according to rules,” he said. “It comes with a readiness to respect democratic procedures, and not to denounce the majority decisions that are made as illegitimate, or a betrayal, or whatever.”
The new lower house has 709 lawmakers, a record size. It has six caucuses, up from four in the previous Parliament.
It includes 92 lawmakers from Alternative for Germany, or AfD, the first party to the right of Merkel’s conservatives to enter Parliament in 60 years.
AfD won 12.6 percent of the vote last month after a campaign that centered on loud criticism of Merkel and her 2015 decision to allow large numbers of migrants into Germany, but also harnessed wider discontent with established politicians.
“The old Parliament, in which you were able to sort out everything among yourselves and push away competition... has been voted out,” AfD chief whip Bernd Baumann told lawmakers.
“The people have decided and now a new era is beginning,” he said.
Baumann complained that Parliament’s rules were changed earlier this year to have the longest-serving lawmaker, rather than the oldest as was previously the case, open the first session. Under the old rules, an AfD lawmaker would have had the opening speech.
Schaeuble, who has been in Parliament for 45 years and had been finance minister since 2009, was elected as the new speaker by 510 votes to 173, with 30 abstentions.
Schaeuble ran unopposed, though AfD objected to him on the grounds that he had previously described the party as a “disgrace for Germany.”
Lawmakers also were due to elect six deputy speakers from the various parties, who are traditionally approved with cross-party support.
A clash between AfD and others was expected over its nominee, Albrecht Glaser. Lawmakers from mainstream parties object to comments in which Glaser indicated that freedom of religion should not apply to Islam, which they say put him at odds with Germany’s constitution.
Merkel’s conservatives, the pro-business Free Democrats and the traditionally left-leaning Greens are in the early stages of trying to form a governing coalition.