Politics
Except for the period between 1985 and 1999 – when the centre-left Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) held a majority of seats in the Landtag (state diet) – the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has governed the Saarland, either alone or in coalition, continuously since the accession of the state to the Federal of Republic of Germany in 1955.
After the most recent state elections – held in 2012 following the collapse of the "Jamaica coalition" agreement of 2009 between the CDU, the liberal FDP, and the centre-left Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (The Greens) – the CDU and SPD, as the two largest parties in the Landtag, decided upon the formation of a "grand coalition" under the overall leadership of the current minister-president, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU).
Read more about this topic: Saarland
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“The politics of the exile are fever,
revenge, daydream,
theater of the aging convalescent.
You wait in the wings and rehearse.
You wait and wait.”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)
“In politics people throw themselves, as on a sickbed, from one side to the other in the belief they will lie more comfortably.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“Man made one grave mistake: in answer to vaguely reformist and humanitarian agitation he admitted women to politics and the professions. The conservatives who saw this as the undermining of our civilization and the end of the state and marriage were right after all; it is time for the demolition to begin.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)