Sole government

In political science, sole government denotes a form of government occupation in parliamentary and semi-presidential systems of government .

It is understood to mean a government whose government majority is based only on a single parliamentary group . A similar definition is that members of the government are made up of only one political party , which is usually the case; but also to non-party of a government members or even members of other parties who are appointed because of their expertise without having this party a formal coalition agreement exists.

A distinction must be made between the sole government and the coalition government , in which the members of the government are made up of several parties, and the all-party government , in which the government is made up of all parties represented in parliament and there is therefore no opposition . In a sole government, the government-forming party usually has an absolute majority of the seats in parliament. If this is not the case, one generally speaks of a minority government . Sole governments are rare in states with proportional representation , as usually no party has the absolute majority of mandates required. In states with majority voting rights , a government with members only from one party is the rule; a special designation of this normality with the term “sole government” is therefore not in use.

Sole governments in Germany and Austria after 1945

In Austria , the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) ruled alone from 1970 to 1983, of which in the XII. Legislative period of the National Council (1970 to 1971) as a minority government. Before that, the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) formed a sole government from 1966 to 1970. In Germany who reached Union parties CDU and CSU in the federal election in 1957 , although an absolute majority of seats, but the existence since 1949, working with was German Party (DP) continued. After the withdrawal of the Federal Minister Hans-Joachim von Merkatz and Hans-Christoph Seebohm from the DP Group on 1 July 1960 and its entry into the CDU / CSU parliamentary group on September 20, 1960 was to the end of the third term in 1961 a sole government of the CDU / CSU.

Two other sole governments of the Federal Republic of Germany only existed as minority governments for a few weeks, each after the Free Democratic Party (FDP) had ended its cooperation with its larger coalition partner:

from October 28 to December 1, 1966: minority government of the CDU / CSU under Federal Chancellor Ludwig Erhard (CDU)
From September 17 to October 1, 1982: minority government of the SPD under Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (SPD)

Sole governments in German federal states after 1945

After the end of the Second World War in 1945 and the subsequent restoration of the German states , there was at least one single government in almost all West German states; the few exceptions are Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the former states of Württemberg-Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern .

Sole governments in the German states since 1945 ¹
country	Sole government by	Period	Head of government	annotation
to bathe	BCSV	1948-1952	Leo Wohleb
Baden-Württemberg	CDU	1972-1992	Hans Filbinger (1972–1978) Lothar Späth (1978–1991) Erwin Teufel (1991–1992)
Bavaria	CSU	1947-1950	Hans Ehard	From 1946 to 1947, despite the absolute majority of the CSU in the Bavarian state parliament, there was a coalition government with the SPD
		1966-2008	Alfons Goppel (1966–1978) Franz Josef Strauss (1978–1988) Max Streibl (1988–1993) Edmund Stoiber (1993-2007) Günther Beckstein (2007-2008)	From 1962 to 1966, despite the absolute majority of the CSU in the Bavarian state parliament, there was a coalition government with the BP
		2013-2018	Horst Seehofer (2013-2018) Markus Söder (2018)
Berlin	SPD	1971-1975	Klaus Schütz	From 1955 to 1971, despite an absolute majority of the SPD in the Berlin House of Representatives, coalition governments existed: 1955–1963: SPD, CDU 1963–1971: SPD, FDP
Berlin	CDU	1981-1983	Richard von Weizsäcker	Minority government
Brandenburg	SPD	1994-1999	Manfred Stolpe
Bremen	SPD	1971-1991	Hans Koschnick (1971–1985) Klaus Wedemeier (1985–1991)	From June to December 1971 as a minority government after the break of the coalition of the SPD and FDP. From 1955 to 1967, despite the absolute majority of the SPD, there were coalition governments in the Bremen citizenship : 1955–1959: SPD, CDU, FDP 1959-1967: SPD, FDP
Hamburg	SPD	1950-1953	Max Brewer	From 1946 to 1950, despite an absolute majority of the SPD in the Hamburg citizenship, coalition governments existed: 1946–1948: SPD, FDP, KPD 1948-1950: SPD, FDP
		1966-1970	Herbert Weichmann	From 1957 to 1966 and from 1970 to 1974 there were coalition governments with the FDP despite the absolute majority of the SPD in the Hamburg citizenship
		1978-1987	Hans-Ulrich Klose (1978–1981) Klaus von Dohnanyi (1981–1987)	Of which minority governments: June 1982 to January 1983 November 1986 to September 1987
		1991-1993	Henning Voscherau
	CDU	2004-2008	Ole von Beust
	SPD	2011-2015	Olaf Scholz
Hesse	SPD	1951-1955	Georg-August Zinn
		1967-1970	Georg-August Zinn (1967–1969) Albert Osswald (1969-1970)	From 1963 to 1967 there was a coalition government with the GDP / BHE despite the absolute majority of the SPD in the Hessian state parliament
		1982-1985 1987	Holger Borner	Minority governments
	CDU	2003-2009	Roland Koch	Minority government: April 2008 to February 2009
Lower Saxony	SPD	1970-1974	Alfred Kubel
	CDU	1976-1977 1978-1986	Ernst Albrecht	Minority government: February 1976 to January 1977
	SPD	1994-2003	Gerhard Schröder (1994–1998) Gerhard Glogowski (1998–1999) Sigmar Gabriel (1999-2003)
North Rhine-Westphalia	CDU	1950	Karl Arnold	Minority government as a transitional cabinet: August to September 1950
	CDU	1958–1962	Franz Meyers
	SPD	1980-1995	Johannes Rau
Rhineland-Palatinate	CDU	1947	Wilhelm Boden	Minority government
	CDU	1971-1987	Helmut Kohl (1971–1976) Bernhard Vogel (1976–1987)	From 1955 to 1963 there was a coalition government with the FDP despite an absolute majority of the CDU in the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament
	SPD	2006-2011	Kurt Beck
Saarland	CVP	1951-1952 1954-1955	Johannes Hoffmann
	CDU	1970-1977	Franz-Josef Röder	Minority government: July 1975 to March 1977
	SPD	1985-1999	Oskar Lafontaine (1985-1998) Reinhard Klektiven (1998–1999)
	CDU	1999-2009	Peter Müller
Saxony	CDU	1990-2004	Kurt Biedenkopf (1990-2002) Georg Milbradt (2002-2004)
Saxony-Anhalt	SPD	1998-2002	Reinhard Höppner	Minority government
Schleswig-Holstein	SPD	1947-1950	Hermann Lüdemann (1947–1949) Bruno Diekmann (1949–1950)
	CDU	1971-1988	Gerhard Stoltenberg (1971–1982) Uwe Barschel (1982–1987) Henning Schwarz (acting, 1987–1988)	Minority government: October 1987 to May 1988
	SPD	1988-1996	Björn Engholm (1988–1993) Heide Simonis (1993–1996)
Thuringia	CDU	1999-2009	Bernhard Vogel (1999-2003) Dieter Althaus (2003-2009)

¹In today's German countries; excluding the states that existed in the Soviet Zone / GDR from 1945 until their dissolution in 1952.

Web links

Wiktionary: sole government - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

↑ Peter Schindler: Data Handbook on the History of the German Bundestag 1949 to 1999 . Complete edition in three volumes. Ed .: Administration of the German Bundestag; Scientific Services Department / Parliamentary History Documentation Unit. tape 1 . Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1999, ISBN 3-7890-5928-5 , p. 1127 .

[1] Peter Schindler: Data Handbook on the History of the German Bundestag 1949 to 1999 . Complete edition in three volumes. Ed .: Administration of the German Bundestag; Scientific Services Department / Parliamentary History Documentation Unit. tape 1 . Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1999, ISBN 3-7890-5928-5 , p. 1127 .