Heidi Reichinnek and AfD MP not in the intelligence agency shot

In the future, only one opposition MP will be represented in the Bundestag’s secret service committee. Both the left-wing parliamentary group leader Heidi Reichinnek and the two AfD candidates Martin Hess and Gerold Otten missed the necessary majority of 316 votes in the election of the new members of the committee in the Bundestag. In addition to three Union MPs and two SPD representatives, only the Green Group Vice Konstantin von Notz is in the parliamentary control committee (PKGR).

The PKGR monitors the secret services, gains access to sensitive information and therefore meets under strict confidentiality in a canceled space. The members are nominated by their factions, but must also be elected in the Bundestag.

CSU state group leader Alexander Hoffmann had expressed reservations against Reich Innek before the election. SPD politicians, on the other hand, said the left-wing politician was a democrat that could be voted.

The left itself had linked the choice of her parliamentary group leader to consent to other votes. When asked what the party would do, if Reichinnek failed, the party leader Jan van Aken replied: “Then I would think out loud about how the CDU would actually imagine to take resolutions here with a two-thirds majority in parliament in the next four years.”

During the past parliamentary term, the left was represented by André Hahn in the PKGR, who had to leave, however, when the party lost the parliamentary status through the split off of the BSW.

Reichinnek received 260 yes votes, according to Bundestag Vice President Andrea Lindholz, with 258 no votes, 27 abstentions and 42 invalid voices. 127 MPs voted for the AfD candidate Gerold Otten. His group colleague Martin Hess received 121 votes.

The AfD has not been in the control committee in recent years. Only in the first parliamentary term after moving into the Bundestag was the party represented there by the former Berlin chief prosecutor Roman Reusch.

The control committee, in the sessions of which is about terrorist threats, anti -constitutional networks and espionage cases, is reduced from 13 to nine members compared to the past few years. Because Reichinnek, Hess and Otten were not elected, there are actually only six MPs. The North Rhine-Westphalian CDU MP Marc Henrichmann.

Politicians and politicians of the Greens had warned several times in the past few weeks to reduce the risk of the risk of incapacity to decline. They therefore abstained as the only parliamentary group in the vote on the establishment of the committee.

Because the required majority in the committee is not based on the number of factual members, but on its theoretical size. Unlike in the committees, there are no representatives. If a member fails longer, for example due to an illness or an accident – the seat remains empty.

Unlike the committees of the Bundestag, who do not have to come together after an election and first have to reorganize themselves, the PKGR meets regardless of elections. This also means that politicians who are no longer in the Bundestag – because they no longer run or have not been elected – continue to participate in the meetings. This was the case, for example, for FDP politicians Konstantin Kuhle and Alexander Müller, whose party had failed at the five percent hurdle in the new election in February.