So many AfD MPs really voted for Wegner

BERLIN. Wouldn’t Kai Wegner have become governing mayor without the AfD? The Berlin AfD parliamentary group voted for the CDU candidate in the third ballot out of “responsibility for the entire city”, explained their boss Kristin Brinker.

The AfD has 17 members in the Berlin state parliament. Wegner received 86 votes in the third ballot – just as many as the governing parties CDU and SPD have parliamentarians. However, Wegner was missing 15 and seven votes from the coalition camp in the first two ballots. It is considered impossible that in the decisive ballot everyone voted for the CDU chairman. Two SPD deputies had already openly declared in advance that they would not do this under any circumstances.

Half of the AfD faction does not choose Wegner

“We didn’t do a test vote,” admitted AfD parliamentary group spokesman Andreas Heinzgen to JUNGE FREIHEIT. However, in the internal meeting between the second and third ballot, AfD deputies declared that Wegner’s election as governing mayor “could not be reconciled with their conscience”.

How many were there then? Heinzgen: “We don’t know exactly because it was a secret election. But assume that half of our parliamentary group voted for Wegner.” According to Heinzgen, however, he could say with certainty that the CDU candidate would not have become head of government without the votes of the AfD.