Even if the negotiations on a “Germany” coalition in Magdeburg lasted longer than planned and the last word on the coalition agreement has not yet been spoken, the efforts could have been worthwhile for all sides: Thanks to the FDP, Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff becomes new state parliament will have a comfortable majority and thus not be dependent on right-wing snipers in the ranks of its CDU.

The resurgent FDP has achieved its goal of keeping the Greens out of power.

The SPD parliamentary group, which has shrunk from eleven to nine members, can continue to determine the course of the state government, albeit grudgingly.

This makes the Saxony-Anhalt SPD the exception among the state associations of social democracy in both East and West.


The government alliance of the CDU, FDP and SPD is likely to remain an exception, even if such a coalition including the CSU were mathematically possible after the federal election.

That the SPD could again enter into an alliance with the Union as a junior partner is likely to be quite unlikely, even if Olaf Scholz is allowed to remain finance minister.

With a party leadership behind her neck that was once elected to end the grand coalition and who doesn't want to be reminded that she dared to bring the SPD back to the 30 percent mark, with a decidedly left-wing leader , which should soon be completed by Kevin Kühnert, the Social Democrats basically took themselves out of the game long ago.

An FDP chairman Christian Lindner, who would have to explain to his party friends why he would rather govern well with the SPD than once badly with the Greens, hardly needed it for the failure of negotiations on a German coalition.