Muhterem Aras (born 2 January 1966 in Elmaağaç in

Bingöl Bingöl ( diq, Çolig; ku, Çewlik; hy, Ճապաղջուր, translit=Chapaghjur) is a city in Eastern Turkey and the capital of Bingöl Province. Etymology One of the historical names for the city, ''Bingöl'' literally means ''thousand lake ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

) is a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

politician of the Alliance '90/The Greens party. She has been a Member of the

Landtag of Baden-Württemberg The Landtag of Baden-Württemberg is the diet of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It convenes in Stuttgart and currently consists of 154 members of five political parties. The majority before the 2021 election was a coalition of the All ...

for the constituency Stuttgart I since May 2011, and Landtagspräsidentin (speaker) since May 2016.

Education and profession

Aras was born in

in the eastern

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...

n village of Elmaağaç, among

Alevi Alevism or Anatolian Alevism (; tr, Alevilik, ''Anadolu Aleviliği'' or ''Kızılbaşlık''; ; az, Ələvilik) is a local Islamic tradition, whose adherents follow the mystical Alevi Islamic ( ''bāṭenī'') teachings of Haji Bektash Veli, w ...

Kurds. She moved to

Filderstadt Filderstadt (; Swabian: ''Fildorsdadd'') is a town in the district of Esslingen in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is located approximately 13 km south of Stuttgart. Filderstadt is located next to the Stuttgart Airport and t ...

in 1978 with her family.Andreas Böhme: ''Die erste Präsidentin. '' After matriculating in Stuttgart, she studied economics at the

University of Hohenheim The University of Hohenheim (german: Universität Hohenheim) is a campus university located in the south of Stuttgart, Germany. Founded in 1818, it is Stuttgart's oldest university. Its primary areas of specialisation had traditionally bee ...

. In 2000 she founded an accounting firm with, at that time, twelve employees in Stuttgart.

Political activity

Her political career began in 1992 when she entered the Green Party. In 1999, she was elected to the local council of Stuttgart. From 2007 to 2011, she was parliamentary leader of her party in that council. In the 2011

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

state election, she won the Erstmandat ("first mandate") in the Stuttgart I constituency with 42.5% of the votes cast. In 2011, Aras became the first Muslim woman to enter the Baden-Württemberg Landtag. She was a member of the Committees on Finance and Economic Affairs and of Culture, Youth and Sports and fiscal policy of the Green Party Group. Since 2014 Aras has been county chair of the Stuttgart District Association of Alliance '90 / The Greens. In 2016 she ran again in Parliamentary constituency of Stuttgart I, and won the mandate with 42.4%, again the nation's best result for her party. On 11 May 2016, Aras was elected as the new Baden-Württemberg Landtag president with the votes of 96 MPs, becoming the first member of the Greens, the first Muslim, and the first woman, to hold the position. Aras was nominated by her party as delegate to the Federal Conventions for the purpose of electing the

President of Germany The president of Germany, officially the Federal President of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: link=no, Bundespräsident der Bundesrepublik Deutschland),The official title within Germany is ', with ' being added in international corres ...

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; The global monkeypo ...

.Renate Allgöwer (21 December 2021)
Astronaut und Freiburg-Trainer: Gerst und Streich sollen den Bundespräsidenten wählen
''

Stuttgarter Zeitung The ''Stuttgarter Zeitung'' ("Stuttgart newspaper") is a German-language daily newspaper (except Sundays) edited in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, with a run of about 200,000 sold copies daily. History and profile It was first edited ...

''.

Personal life

Muhterem Aras has been married since 1986 and has a son and a daughter. She is an adherent of the Alevist form of Islam and lives in Stuttgart.

References

External links

Internetpräsenz von Muhterem Aras

https://web.archive.org/web/20160517234631/http://www.landtag-bw.de/cms/home/der-landtag/abgeordnete/abgeordnetenprofile/die-grunen-1/aras.html ''Wahlperdiode.''] Landtag Baden-Württemberg, retrieved 5 May 2016.
Profilseite Landtagsfraktion

auf Parliamentwatch, abgeordnetenwatch.de
Vom anatolischen Mädchen zur schwäbischen Politikerin
Deutsche Islamkonferenz {{DEFAULTSORT:Aras, Muhterem Alliance 90/The Greens politicians 1966 births Members of the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg German people of Kurdish descent 21st-century German politicians Living people Kurdish politicians