Aras first Muslim woman speaker in German state Parliament

Muhterem Aras

STUTTGART, Muhterem Aras, a member of Green Party, has become the first Muslim woman to become the speaker in a German state Parliament, media sources said.
Aras, 50, was elected as a lawmaker in the state legislature in Baden-Württemberg.
“This week, we in Baden-Württemberg are again writing history,” the Stuttgart lawmaker said, referring to the recent successes of her party, which is governing as the largest coalition party with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Aras wrote on her Facebook page that she is also the first woman to take up “the important post of house speaker” in the southwestern state’s legislature. She is the first immigrant to hold the most powerful position in the state, sources said.
In her maiden speech after the election, she said her victory sends “a message of openness, tolerance, and successful integration.”
Aras, an accountant by profession, had previously worked as a financial affairs spokeswoman for her party. She began her political career in 1992 and was later a local councillor in Stuttgart, the state capital and Baden-Württemberg’s largest city, for 12 years.
She ran her campaign to become the speaker on a range of issues, such as more places at vocational high schools, switching off nuclear power plants, and rebuilding new industries that are eco-friendly. “In the next Parliament, I want to represent you,” she wrote in on Facebook, “so Stuttgart remains an innovative, cosmopolitan, and sustainable city, in which all segments of the population live and work.”