Overview
- Brandenburg’s two-seat majority collapsed after BSW infighting: Finance Minister Robert Crumbach quit BSW and joined the SPD group, and ex-BSW deputies Jouleen Gruhn and André von Ossowski left the BSW faction.
- Woidke said the cabinet will remain in office and that he will operate a de facto minority government while pursuing a more durable majority.
- SPD leaders confirmed Crumbach’s and Gruhn’s admission to their parliamentary group, creating the arithmetic for an SPD–CDU majority, and CDU leader Jan Redmann signaled readiness for talks.
- BSW leaders rejected the SPD’s account, insisted they remained committed to the coalition, and condemned the defectors’ moves as a betrayal.
- The rupture followed months of internal BSW disputes that peaked over November’s vote on the media-state treaties, as the AfD pressed for snap elections and polling puts it near 35 percent statewide.