Constitutive meeting of the newly elected House of Representatives in Berlin

After election in Berlin, left-wing politician Klein is the new President of Parliament As of: October 29, 2026 • 6:31 p.m

Almost six weeks after the election in Berlin, the House of Representatives met for its constituent session. The left-wing politician Klein has been elected as the new President of Parliament.

The Berlin House of Representatives met for the first time with a new line-up almost six weeks after the election. The left-wing politician Hendrikje Klein was elected as the new speaker of parliament. At the inaugural session of the state parliament, 98 of the 149 MPs present voted for the 46-year-old. There were 42 votes against and nine abstentions. Klein is the first female politician from her party to hold the office - and the third woman after Hanna-Renate Laurien (CDU/1991-1995) and Cornelia Seibeld (CDU/2023-2026). The Left, as the strongest faction, had the right to propose the important post.

Klein, who has a degree in administration, has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2016, so she has many years of parliamentary experience. Since 2024 she has been parliamentary managing director of the Left parliamentary group. Her areas of expertise also included human resources and administration. In the election on September 20th, she won a direct mandate in the Lichtenberg 5 constituency. One of the duties of the President of Parliament is to chair meetings of the House of Representatives. She chairs the multi-member Presidium and the Council of Elders. It also exercises domestic authority and police power in parliament and represents it externally. Klein was elected for a five-year term. She introduced herself to the parliamentary groups last Tuesday. In the secret election in the plenary session, she obviously received not only votes from the red-green-red camp. Klein announced in advance that he wanted to leave plenty of room for debate, but the tone had to be right. Parliament wants to open it up to school classes or first-time voters. She wants to increasingly criticize unparliamentary behavior.

The AfD candidate for the post of Vice President of the Berlin House of Representatives, Martin Trefzer, failed in the plenary election. Trefzer received 40 yes votes out of 149 votes cast in a secret vote at the inaugural session of Parliament. The AfD parliamentary group has 29 members. The CDU candidate for the deputy post, Cornelia Seibeld, received a majority. 109 MPs voted for it, with 33 votes against, 6 abstentions and one invalid vote. Seibeld served as President of the House of Representatives in the past legislative period since 2023. According to the rules of procedure, the two vice-presidents of the House of Representatives are nominated by the second and third largest factions, i.e. the CDU and AfD. One of the two positions remains vacant for the time being.

The meeting was opened by CDU MP Kurt Wansner, who at 78 is the oldest member of parliament. In his speech, Wansner called for social and religious tolerance. Every Berlin citizen has the right to live their own faith and shape their personality accordingly, said Wansner. "It must shock us all when, according to their own statements, Jewish fellow citizens no longer feel safe in the capital of Germany. Something that we believed we would never have to experience again after our unforgettable past." It is the task of all representatives and Berlin citizens to oppose such a development.

The House of Representatives has 153 members in the new five-year legislative period. That's six fewer than before. The Left has 45 seats. However, the group initially only has 44 members because an elected left-wing politician did not attend the group's inaugural meeting due to illness.

The CDU has 33 members, the AfD 29, the Greens 25 and the SPD 21. Almost half of the members were new members of parliament. The proportion of women in the House of Representatives is around 38 percent. The Left became the strongest force in the Berlin election and is aiming for a coalition with the Greens and the SPD. If this succeeds, the current parliamentary group leader Elif Eralp could become a left-wing mayor for the first time.

Broadcast: rbb24 Inforadio, October 29th, 2026, 11 a.m. Audio: rbb24 Inforadio, October 29th, 2026, Mathias Wetzel

This topic in the program: rbb24 | News | Oct 29, 2026 | 07:00 am