Eastern German legislature elects mainstream conservative speaker after far-right election win

BERLIN (AP) — Lawmakers have elected a mainstream conservative as speaker of the state parliament in eastern Germany’s Thuringia region, putting aside a convention that the strongest party gets the job after the far-right Alternative for Germany won a regional election for the first time. The center-right Christian Democratic Union’s Thadäus König was elected in a parliamentary session that stretched over two days, punctuated by a court ruling against the conduct of the far-right politician who chaired the proceedings. It underlined the prospect of a very bumpy parliamentary term after the Sept. 1 election in which Alternative for Germany, or AfD, finished first with nearly one-third of the vote — the first far-right win in a state election in post-World War II Germany.