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Top candidate Katja Pähle: Will she continue to govern with her SPD in the Magdeburg state parliament in the future?
Photo: Svea Pietschmann / dpa
For Saxony-Anhalt's Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff, the starting position after the state elections is comfortable.
According to a projection by Infratest dimap, his CDU is the clear winner with 36.9 percent of the vote. The party was able to improve its result in the last election five years ago by more than seven percentage points.
The good result also opens up new opportunities for Haseloff to form a coalition in the Magdeburg state parliament.
In addition to a continuation of the current Kenya coalition of CDU, SPD and Greens, the CDU and SPD could only govern two people in the future.
Projections from both ARD and ZDF see the parties achieving the necessary majority of 42 seats in the state parliament by a wafer thin layer.
In the election, according to Infratest dimap, the AfD became the second strongest force with 21.1 percent of the vote, followed by the Left with 11.3, the SPD with 8.3, the FDP with 6.4 and the Greens with 6.2 percent of votes.
The FDP's participation in government in a German coalition with the CDU and SPD would then no longer be necessary.
The other way around, a government would also be possible without the Social Democrats.
A Jamaican coalition made up of the CDU, FDP and the Greens would also have a majority of 45 mandates.
"It will be explored fairly and openly," Haseloff announced that evening in the ARD "Tagesschau" - but he did not give any further details.
The state CDU would "not allow itself to be instrumentalized by federal policy guidelines," said the state chief.
"It's about Saxony-Anhalt," he clarified.
Within the current cabinet, there are already proposals for a new alliance: Justice Minister Anne-Marie Keding (CDU) spoke out in favor of a coalition of CDU, SPD and FDP, according to the dpa news agency. "This is the natural coalition for me now," said Keding. The current Kenya coalition has worked well together. "I think the intersection with the FDP in Saxony-Anhalt is greater than the intersection with the Greens in Saxony-Anhalt," said Keding, however.
The CDU parliamentary group leader in Saxony-Anhalt, Siegfried Borgwardt, called for the options for a coalition to be evaluated calmly. "We now have three or even four negotiating options, and with the parliamentary reform we have ensured that we don't have just 14 days to negotiate," said Borgwardt. The time will be taken to find the best coalition and negotiation for the country. A continuation of the existing Kenya coalition of CDU, SPD and Greens is not a matter of course. Rather, the desire for a so-called German coalition of CDU, SPD and FDP is great. "There are several options and we should explore them properly," said Borgwardt.
Haseloff had recently excluded only two coalitions: those with the AfD and with the left.
Previous statements by individual CDU MPs in Saxony-Anhalt, which had encouraged rapprochement and discussions with the AfD, Haseloff thus clearly rejected.
The CDU party leadership also attributed the strong election result for the Christian Democrats in Saxony-Anhalt to the recent clear demarcation from the AfD.
"The fire wall is in place - both at the federal level and in Saxony-Anhalt," said CDU General Secretary Paul Ziemiak after the first projections.
fek / dpa