Shortly before midnight on 19 November 2017, the FDP declared the exploratory talks for a Jamaica coalition with the CDU, the CSU and the Greens a failure. The party leader, Christian Lindner, said the four partners had not built a Vertrauensbasis, a basis of trust. He said the FDP had made many offers of compromise. But after weeks of talks there was still ein Papier mit zahllosen Widersprüchen, offenen Fragen und Zielkonflikten, a paper with countless contradictions, open questions and conflicting goals. Where agreements did exist, they were erkauft mit viel Geld der Bürger oder mit Formelkompromissen, bought with a lot of the citizens’ money or with formula compromises. A Formelkompromiss is a form of words that covers a disagreement without settling it. Then Lindner said: Es ist besser, nicht zu regieren, als falsch zu regieren. It is better not to govern than to govern wrongly.