The Alliance came up just short of the 201 seats needed to govern alone.[1] Lothar de Maizière of the CDU, the early favorite to become East Germany's first freely elected prime minister, invited the SPD to join his Alliance partners – Democratic Awakening (DA) and the German Social Union (DSU) – in a grand coalition. The SPD was initially cool to de Maizière's offer, in part because of the presence of the DSU in de Maizière's grouping; the SPD had originally been willing to govern alongside all parties other than the PDS and DSU.[2]