State party conference decision: Saxony-Anhalt gets black and red

Saxony-Anhalt will in future be governed by a coalition of CDU, SPD and FDP. As the last of the three parties, the FDP agreed to the negotiated coalition agreement on Friday evening: An extraordinary state party conference on Friday evening voted in favor of the alliance with one abstention and one vote against. State party leader Lydia Hüskens thanked the delegates for the clear vote. The CDU and SPD had already approved the coalition. The FDP had received 6.4 percent of the vote in the state elections on June 6th and had returned to the state parliament after ten years of extra-parliamentary opposition.

In the afternoon, the CDU had already announced its approval for the alliance.

According to state chief Sven Schulze, 92.1 percent of the participants in a member survey were in favor of the draft of the black-red-yellow coalition agreement.

Schulze spoke of an "extremely good result" that had already emerged in discussions with the members over the past few weeks.

At the three regional conferences at which the party leadership had promoted the 157-page draft treaty, there was almost only positive feedback.

The CDU had unexpectedly clearly won the state election with 37.1 percent.

The SPD had also already decided on the alliance in a member survey. The approval of the Social Democrats had been seen as the greatest uncertainty factor for the government's plans. After another loss of votes, the SPD only achieved 8.4 percent in the state elections and therefore had to cut back on substantive demands and the allocation of ministries in the coalition negotiations. 60.4 percent of the 3300 SPD members in Saxony-Anhalt finally voted, 63.4 percent of them approve the draft coalition agreement.

After more than three months, the formation of a government in Saxony-Anhalt is now almost complete with the approval of the FDP. The coalition agreement is due to be signed this Monday. On Thursday the parliamentary groups of the CDU, SPD and FDP will elect Reiner Haseloff (CDU) for his third term as prime minister, after which the cabinet will be sworn in.