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German state of Brandenburg re-elects premier with new coalition
Nov 6, 2009, 13:46 GMT
Potsdam, Germany - The state of Brandenburg re-elected its premier, Matthias Platzeck, to office Friday at the head of a coalition which gives Germany's controversial Left party a new foothold in power.
Platzeck, who is a former national leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), dumped his previous coalition partner, the conservative Christian Democratic Union, to forge a new SPD-Left alliance in the state, which is made up of the cities and countryside around Berlin.
The Left has its roots in the communist party of former East Germany and is still viewed with suspicion in the west of the country. Among Germany's 16 states, the only other one where the Left is part of a governing coalition is the city-state of Berlin.
Platzeck, 55, was returned as premier on a 54-32 vote in the state parliament in Potsdam.
Platzeck led the national SPD only briefly, from November 2005 till April 2006, before retiring from that post with health problems.
The CDU, the party of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has heen upset that Platzeck rejected it.
Dieter Dombrowski, the CDU general secretary in the state, wore a jailhouse costume at the swearing-in to protest at two former communist secret-police employees who lead the Left in the state.
Dombrowski spent two years in prison under the communists for attempting to flee to the west and for speaking to western officials.
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