Overview
- Ansgar Heveling, named by the governing coalition on Tuesday, emerged as the nominee to succeed Kay Scheller as president of the Bundesrechnungshof.
- The SPD signaled consent to the choice, and the Bundestag plans an early May election that will require an absolute majority.
- Heveling said he will give up his Bundestag seat if elected, and the 53-year-old jurist now serves as the CDU/CSU parliamentary group’s legal counsel after earlier work in a state finance ministry.
- The Bundesrechnungshof, based in Bonn, checks how federal tax money is used, and its members enjoy judicial independence.
- The post carries a single 12-year term and is filled on the federal government’s proposal by elections in the Bundestag and Bundesrat before appointment by the Federal President, with recent attention on the process after SPD’s Klara Geywitz became vice president and a separate nomination effort failed last summer.