Bremen, Germany
The Social Democrats in the SPD won Sunday’s state election in Bremen and the party’s lead candidate, Andreas Bovenschulte, will form a new government with just under 30 percent of the electorate behind him. So far, the SPD has ruled with the Green Party, which had a poor election and fell almost six percentage points to 11.9 percent. As a consequence of the bad result, the Green frontwoman, Maike Schaefer, announced that she is stepping down and will leave politics. It is now up to Bovenschulte whether the SPD should govern alone or together with the environmental party again. During the election campaign, Bovenschulte failed to commit to an alliance with the environmental party. /ritzau/dpa