After Reiner Haseloff’s resignation, the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament elected his successor. Surprisingly, it went without any surprises.
Sven Schulze is the new Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt. In the first round of voting, 58 MPs gave him their votes on Monday morning, more than the required majority of 49 votes. He continues the coalition of his CDU with the SPD and the FDP unchanged. The three factions have a majority of 56 votes in the state parliament. When he took office, Schulze also thanked the opposition MPs who had elected him.
However, there are only seven months left of the legislative period, after which things could look different. Because on September 6th, Saxony-Anhalt will elect a new parliament. Reiner Haseloff (CDU), the previous Prime Minister, had declared at the beginning of January that he would vacate his office after 15 years. The obvious reason: the CDU’s top candidate for the state election, Sven Schulze, should benefit from the incumbent bonus.
In surveys, the Union is currently at around 26 percent. In the last state election in 2021, she received 37.1 percent of the votes and thus came first. Now she is lying only in second place, behind the AfD. Surveys show this figure to be 40 percent, and mutual accusations of criminal offenses and nepotism within the AfD’s regional association have not changed this. Depending on the election results, the national authoritarian party could even get an absolute majority in the state parliament after the state elections.
A handover, not a restart
Schulze’s election as Prime Minister is a handover, not a new start. He literally promises to continue his predecessor’s policies. Even though the CDU has fallen in the polls, Haseloff is well-known and popular. Schulze, on the other hand, lacks visibility, although he has been Economics Minister since 2021 and has been CDU chairman in Saxony-Anhalt since 2023.
As Prime Minister, the CDU clearly hopes that this will change so that the AfD cannot govern in Saxony-Anhalt. In his inaugural speech, Schulze thanked Reiner Haseloff for his work as Prime Minister. “The development of Saxony-Anhalt continues, with a stable state government,” he said. He then promised the citizens: “You can rely on Sven Schulze.”
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