Far-right AfD takes its first seats in German parliament

BERLIN, Germany — Germany’s new parliament elects Wolfgang Schaeuble, the country’s longtime finance minister, as its speaker Tuesday while the nationalist Alternative for Germany party declares that a “new era” had begun as its lawmakers take their seats for the first time.

The new lower house has 709 lawmakers, a record size. 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 tells lawmakers. “The people have decided and now a new era is beginning,” he says.

— AP