my.cnf created as my.cnf.dpkg-new due to alternatives symlink

The mariadb-server-10.2 package tries to install /etc/mysql/my.cnf, but that is already a symbolic link to /etc/alternatives/my.cnf. As a result, my.cnf is created as my.cnf.dpkg-new and hence NOT loaded when the server starts. As a result, the bind-address=127.0.0.1 directive will NOT be in effect and the server will listen on all interfaces.

This was a fresh install, not an upgrade from mysql. Only the mysql-common package was already installed due to other packages depending on it (postfix I think).

Is there a workaround for this problem? I don't want to just replace the symlink by force.