Wiesbaden (dpa/lhe) - Astrid Wallmann was the first woman to be elected head of the Hessian parliament. The majority of parliamentarians voted for the 42-year-old in an open election on Tuesday in Parliament in Wiesbaden. The previous President of the State Parliament, Boris Rhein (CDU), had previously been elected Prime Minister of Hesse by the MPs and then resigned from his presidency. After the election, Wallmann thanked the MPs for their trust and said she was very much looking forward to the new task.
The new President of the Hessian State Parliament is the daughter of the Mayor of Wiesbaden, Wilhelm Wallmann, and niece of the former Prime Minister of Hesse, Walter Wallmann. In 2009 she entered the state parliament as a directly elected member. The first official act for Wallmann in the afternoon was the swearing-in of the 50-year-old Rhine as the new head of government of Hesse.
Rhein had held the office of President of the State Parliament since January 2019. There are five vice-presidents: Frank Lortz (CDU), Heike Hofmann (SPD), Karin Müller (Greens), Ulrich Wilken (Left) and Jörg-Uwe Hahn (FDP). So far, the AfD parliamentary group has not provided a vice-president because its candidates have always failed to get the necessary number of votes in the state parliament.
