Schwerin (dpa / mv) - Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's long-time Prime Minister Harald Ringstorff (SPD) is dead. He died last Thursday at the age of 81, as the State Chancellery announced on Monday in Schwerin.

Ringstorff was head of government in the northeast from 1998 to 2008 - longer than anyone else in the history of the state.