(Bloomberg) -- Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party cleared the way for installing a government in an eastern German state while excluding the far-right party that triggered a national political crisis.

Leaders of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union in Thuringia agreed late Friday to allow the re-election of state premier Bodo Ramelow from the anti-capitalist Left party and to hold a regional election in March 2021, ARD public television and other German media reported.

The deal means the CDU will in effect support the Left, Social Democratic and Green parties in extending Ramelow’s term. It reverses a Feb. 5 vote to oust him, which caused an international outcry because the CDU and the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, teamed up in the state legislature to elect a premier from the pro-market Free Democratic Party.

The vote set off a political crisis that led the FDP candidate to resign within days and ended the tenure of Merkel’s successor as national CDU chairwoman, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Czuczka in New York at aczuczka@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Robert Jameson

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