Cabinet Ringstorff II

Cabinet Ringstorff II
5. State government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Prime Minister	Harald Ringstorff
choice	2002
Legislative period	4th
education	November 6, 2002
The End	November 7, 2006
Duration	4 years and 1 day
predecessor	Cabinet Ringstorff I
successor	Cabinet Ringstorff III
composition
Party (s)	SPD and Die Linke
representation
Parliament	46/71
Opposition leader	Eckhardt Rehberg ( CDU )

The Ringstorff II cabinet was the state government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after the state elections in 2002 . It continued the red-red coalition of the SPD and PDS that had ruled since 1998. Prime Minister was Harald Ringstorff (SPD). The government was in office from November 6, 2002 to November 7, 2006.

requirements

The first red-red coalition in Germany under Prime Minister Harald Ringstorff ( Cabinet Ringstorff I ) stood for election . This first government with the participation of the SED successor party PDS in Germany had provoked heated discussions nationwide. Critics spoke of a “taboo break” or a “fall from man”, others of a “normalization” in dealing with a democratically elected party that received almost a quarter of the votes. When Ringstorff was elected Prime Minister, eight MPs from his own camp refused to vote, which was seen as a clear indication of the reluctance in parts of their own party to cooperate with the socialist PDS. Ringstorff's strategy of wanting to "disenchant" the PDS in the day-to-day business of governing, however, worked, the PDS lost eight percentage points in 2002 and was the clear loser of choice.

The coalition's record was modest. After a four-year term in office, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had an unemployment rate of 20%, the gross domestic product had fallen continuously since 1999 and the establishment of large industrial projects such as the production of the Airbus in Rostock failed. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had not made any economic progress during the third legislative period. The PDS had not been able to implement the announced policy change in everyday practical work and remained largely a majority procurer for the SPD.

The top candidates for the 2002 state elections were the popular Prime Minister Harald Ringstorff for the SPD, who was in charge of presidentialization of his office, and the two parliamentary group leaders in the Schwerin state parliament, Eckhardt Rehberg for the CDU and Angelika Gramkow for the PDS. As since the state elections in 1994 , only three parties were represented in the Schwerin state parliament after the 2002 election. The SPD won 33 seats (an increase of six seats), the CDU 25 (+1) and the PDS 13 (-7). Both the FDP and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen as well as the right-wing extremist parties failed because of the threshold clause .

The red-red coalition in the fourth legislative period

Harald Ringstorff (2007)

Despite the changed balance of power, the PDS retained three ministerial posts. For the PDS, having to organize the labor market reforms that came into force in 2005 was a test of strength as a ruling party. While the PDS vehemently mobilized against Agenda 2010 of the red-green federal government, the Schwerin parliament was the first state parliament to pass the Hartz IV implementation law from the Ministry of Labor under Helmut Holter (PDS) with the votes of the PDS .

List of ministers

minister	Surname	Political party		State Secretary
Prime Minister	Harald Ringstorff		SPD	Frank Tidick , SPD (until 2005) Reinhard Meyer , SPD (from 2006) ( Head of the State Chancellery ) Thomas Freund , ( Federal Agent )
Deputy Prime Minister	Wolfgang Methling		PDS
Interior	Gottfried Timm		SPD	Hartmut Bosch , SPD
Judiciary	Erwin Sellering		SPD	Rainer Litten , SPD (from 2003)
Finances	Sigrid Keler		SPD	Jost Mediger , SPD
economy	Otto Ebnet		SPD	Reinhard Meyer (until 2005) Sebastian Schröder (from 2006)
Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries	Till Backhaus		SPD	Karl Otto Kreer , SPD
environment	Wolfgang Methling		PDS	Dietmar Glitz (until January 2003) Harald Stegemann , Linke (from January 2003)
Education, science and culture	Hans-Robert Metelmann		independent	Manfred Hiltner , SPD
Labor, construction and land development	Helmut Holter		PDS	Klaus Sühl , left
Social	Marianne Linke		PDS	Wolfram Friedersdorff , left
Parliamentary State Secretary for Women and Equality	-		SPD	Margret Seemann

See also

• List of members of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania State Parliament (4th electoral period)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Karsten Grabow: The party system of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , in: Parties and party systems in the German states , edited by Uwe Jun, Melanie Haas, Oskar Niedermayer , VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, p. 265. [Further literature on this debate is specified there under note 2]
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Karsten Grabow: The party system of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , in: Parties and party systems in the German states , edited by Uwe Jun, Melanie Haas, Oskar Niedermayer, VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, p. 271.
3. ↑ Karsten Grabow: The party system of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , in: Parties and party systems in the German states , edited by Uwe Jun, Melanie Haas, Oskar Niedermayer, VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, p. 272.
4. ↑ Karsten Grabow: The party system of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , in: Parties and party systems in the German states , edited by Uwe Jun, Melanie Haas, Oskar Niedermayer, VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, p. 273.