There was a sensation in the election of the Thuringian Prime Minister on Wednesday: Acting Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow was unexpectedly voted out because all parties on the right spectrum, from the FDP to the CDU to the AfD, allied against him. The successor is the 54-year-old FDP state chairman Thomas Kemmerich, who received 45 votes in the third ballot, one vote more than Ramelow.

The left-wing politician Ramelow had previously missed the absolute majority twice in the state parliament of the eastern German state. A relative majority was sufficient in the third ballot; therefore the reelection of Ramelow was expected. Together, Ramelow’s coalition of left, SPD and Greens would have had 42 seats in the 90-member state parliament. The AfD has 22 mandates. Initially, she sent the non-party candidate Christoph Kindervater into the race, but then also supported Kemmerich in the third ballot. This had only started on the last ballot.

The new Prime Minister of Thuringia, Thomas Kemmerich. Imago

How the future Kemmerich government is supposed to function is unclear. With 5 seats, the FDP led by Kemmerich is the smallest party in the state parliament. In the fall election, she almost missed re-entering the legislature because of the five percent hurdle. The new prime minister is politically in a precarious position. The FDP, CDU and AfD have a majority of 48 seats, but so far the other parties have not wanted to work with the right-wing populists from the AfD.

At least for the CDU leadership, this principle still applies: After the election, their faction leader in Thuringia, Mike Mohring, emphasized that Kemmerich must now make it clear that there will be no coalition with the AfD. Even if no AfD ministers move into the state government, Kemmerich will remain dependent on this party. The AfD has achieved its goal of helping to power for the first time with the help of a government with a “bourgeois majority”.

The chairman of the left, Bernd Riexinger, spoke in a first reaction of breaking a taboo. “How far have we got that the FDP has a Prime Minister Kemmerich elected with the votes of the fascist Höcke and the AfD? This is a taboo breach that will have far-reaching consequences, »he wrote on Twitter. FDP and CDU should now explain a lot.

Ramelow had been the head of government of the Free State since 2014 and the first prime minister of the Left Party in Germany. Although Ramelow’s party clearly won the election in autumn 2019 with 31 percent, the majority of the previous government of the Left, SPD and Greens was lost. Nevertheless, red-red-green would have wanted to continue in a minority government led by Ramelow.