The election of the state parliament in February 2005 led Schleswig-Holstein into turbulent weeks of contested government formation. In spite of their popular Prime Minister, the Social Democrats (SPD) had to pocket heavy losses, while the Christian Democrats (CDU) became the strongest party. As the Liberals (FDP) lost one percentage point, CDU and FDP failed to get the majority needed to form the coalition they were striving for. On the other hand, the SPD and the Greens could build a government only with the help of the SSW, a party representing Danish and Frisian minorities in Schleswig-Holstein. When the SSW declared its willingness to support a minority government of SPD und the Greens, it faced strong warnings from Christian Democrats and Liberals. The latter sometimes even denied SSW MPs the right to take part in forming the government at all. In spite of such campaigns, SPD, the Greens and SSW negotiated a government program. Although the three parties had a one seatmajority in the state parliament, one MP did not cast his vote in the secret election of Heide Simonis as Prime Minister, thus forcing her party to join a grand coalition with the CDU under Peter Harry Carstensen. In retrospect, the post-electoral politics of Schleswig-Holstein appears as a first step on the way towards the early election of the Bundestag in autumn 2005.