Rainer Haselhoff gets away with it with a black eye: After he did not receive a majority in the first ballot, he was re-elected Prime Minister in the second ballot.
The previous incumbent Reiner Haseloff (CDU) was confirmed in office in the election of the Prime Minister in Saxony-Anhalt. In the second ballot, the 67-year-old received 53 yes votes in the Magdeburg state parliament on Thursday, thus achieving the necessary majority. In the first ballot, Haseloff had previously missed the required majority of 49 votes because some MPs from the ranks of the planned coalition of CDU, SPD and FDP refused to follow him.
Reiner Haseloff (CDU) missed the required majority in the first ballot in the election for Prime Minister in the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt. Only 48 of the 97 MPs voted yes on Thursday. Haseloff needs at least 49 yes-votes for an election. He now has to face a second ballot. If he also fails to achieve an absolute majority, the majority of the votes cast in the third ballot would be sufficient for the election as head of government. The meeting was initially suspended for an hour.
The coalition of CDU, SPD and FDP has 56 votes in the Magdeburg state parliament. The CDU had unexpectedly clearly won the state election on June 6 with 37.1 percent and has 40 MPs. Haseloff is aiming for a third term of office as the first head of government in Saxony-Anhalt.
Not the first time for Reiner Haseloff
The now 67-year-old had already suffered a damper in his two previous elections: In 2011, several MPs from the coalition of CDU and SPD voted against Haseloff – because of the large majority at the time, it was enough for him in the first ballot. At the beginning of the black-red-green coalition in 2016, Haseloff was only elected in the second ballot.
Thanks to the gains in the new state parliament, Haseloff’s CDU already has a majority of one vote with the SPD alone. That was the 67-year-old, who in the past two years could not always rely on the entire CDU parliamentary group, but it was too tight. The FDP, which had managed to return to the state parliament after ten years with 6.4 percent, was regarded by the conservatives as a natural coalition partner.
A continuation of the black-red-green state government had ruled out the CDU’s already unpopular Greens because of the black-red majority.
In the election, the SPD had slipped to a historic low of 8.4 percent. After days of explorations, a party congress, coalition negotiations and a member survey, the Social Democrats had also agreed to join the new coalition.
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