Lawmakers in the eastern German state of Saxony on Tuesday elected Alexander Dierks of the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) as the new president of the state parliament. In recent elections in Saxony on September 1, the CDU placed first, narrowly ahead of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). That is expected to allow Saxony’s incumbent state premier, Michael Kretschmer, to extend his leadership for another term. Dierks easily won the presidency on Tuesday, with 97 out of 119 possible votes. He will succeed his CDU colleague, Matthias Rössler, who had served as state parliament pr…