Manuela Schwesig (47, SPD) has been re-elected as Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
In the first ballot she received 41 of 79 votes cast in the Schwerin state parliament. The SPD and the Left have 43 votes in the state parliament. That means that not all MPs of the red-red coalition voted for Schwesig – a small damper.
Schwesig’s red-red government is to be appointed on Monday afternoon and also sworn in in the state parliament. The first meeting of the new cabinet is scheduled for the evening.
With 39.6 percent, the SPD emerged as the clear winner of the state elections on September 26, while the Left achieved a historically poor result with 9.9 percent. Nonetheless, Schwesig opted for them as a government partner instead of the CDU (13.3 percent) as before – and thus changed the government partner of the SPD in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for the first time in 15 years.
Most recently, the SPD had already ruled together with the PDS / Die Linke as a junior partner in the northeast from 1998 to 2006 – and thus sparked discussions because the alliance at that time was against the will of the Federal SPD.
After the election, Schwesig had always emphasized that he wanted to form a stable government with reliable partners. That seems possible to her with the left: there are numerous content-related overlaps between the two parties at the state level, for example in educational, social and economic policy.
Special party conferences of the SPD and Linker confirmed the coalition agreement last Saturday almost unanimously.
In the state parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with 79 members, the red-red alliance has a majority of four votes. The electoral term lasts five years.
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