Local elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 2014
The 2014 municipal elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania took place on May 25, 2014. A vote was taken on the occupation of the municipal councils and the district councils of the six districts . In the municipalities that are administered on a voluntary basis, the mayors were also newly elected. The district assemblies were only elected in 2011, but due to the district reform , the new election for 2014 had already been set at that time. The elections took place parallel to the European elections. Local elections were held in nine other federal states on the same day.
The next local elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania will take place on May 26, 2019.
Electoral process
The legal basis for the preparation and implementation of the election is regulated in particular by the constitution of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the state and municipal electoral law (LKWG).
In local elections, everyone who has reached the age of 16 has the right to stand as a candidate . Foreign citizens from the EU are also entitled to vote at the municipal level .
Each voter has three votes in the district council election, which he can distribute as desired via the candidate lists of the parties and voter communities or the individual applicants. The votes can be cast ( variegated ) for three different candidates from one or more parties , but also all for a single candidate ( cumulative ).
Another peculiarity compared to the provisions for state elections is that, in addition to parties and individual applicants, groups of voters can also run. In contrast to the state election, there is no five percent hurdle in the district election .
Elections to the district councils
Depending on their population size and area, the district assemblies of the new great districts are equipped with a different number of seats. The districts of Mecklenburgische Seenplatte and Ludwigslust-Parchim will each have 77 seats, the districts of Rostock , Vorpommern-Rügen and Vorpommern-Greifswald will each have 69 seats and the district of Northwest Mecklenburg will have 61 seats.
The districts are divided into several electoral areas in which the parties or voter communities ran with different nominations, i.e. with different candidates. In view of the enormous size of the districts, this should ensure a balanced local distribution of mandates. However, the parties and electoral communities mostly put up well-known personalities in all electoral areas.
Candidates, campaigning and polls
The parties had to nominate their candidates by March 13th. Sometimes there were problems in getting enough candidates. After the district reform in 2011 , the long distances within the newly formed districts in particular represent a hurdle.
The Left was not allowed to vote in local elections in Stralsund because it submitted nominations which the state and federal arbitration commissions of the party believe should not have been legally established. After the district executive ignored the decision, some party members, including the previous parliamentary group leader in the citizenry, presented their own “left open list”. In 2009 the Left had become the second largest parliamentary group after the CDU with 18.3 percent.
Some of the NPD's mayoral candidates were not allowed to vote by the election committees . In some cities and communities such as Ueckermünde , Torgelow or Strasburg, the NPD does not compete with its own lists, but individual members are on the lists of electoral communities ("We from here", "Alternative for Torgelow" and "Schöneres Strasburg").
Before the election, several cities are again designating restricted zones for election posters. Parts of the old towns or main roads in Schwerin , Neubrandenburg and possibly Rostock again are affected .
According to a survey by Infratest , 67 percent of those questioned said that local politics were the deciding factor for them. State or federal politics, on the other hand, only played the decisive role for 29 percent. Long-term party affiliation is therefore only decisive for the voting decision for 10 percent of the respondents, 59 percent stated, however, that the proposed solutions determined their voting decision, for 26 percent it was primarily the candidates that were decisive. 68 percent said they had a strong or very strong interest in the local elections.
The greatest municipal competence was attributed to the SPD and the CDU by 25 percent, the left achieved a value of nine percent, groups of voters were eight percent, the Greens two and other parties six percent.
Result
640,682 of the 1,377,312 eligible voters took part in the local elections, making the turnout 46.5 percent. This fluctuated considerably and was sometimes significantly higher in the districts than in the independent cities. The district Ludwigslust-Parchim recorded the highest voter turnout (51.0 percent), while it was lowest in the Hanseatic city of Rostock (40.4 percent). 97.2 percent of the votes cast were valid, 51,565 invalid (2.8 percent). This value fluctuated between 1.7 percent in Rostock and Schwerin and 3.3 percent in the district of Vorpommern-Rügen.
The CDU emerged from the local elections as the clear winner and after slight gains with a share of 33.0 percent of the votes it is still by far the strongest party in the district assemblies and local councils. The second strongest force was again Die Linke (19.7 percent) ahead of the SPD (18.9 percent), with both parties suffering losses.
| Political party | District councils / municipal councils of independent cities |
Seats |
|---|---|---|
| CDU | 8th | 170 |
| The left | 8th | 103 |
| SPD | 8th | 100 |
| Green | 8th | 31 |
| AfD | 8th | 22nd |
| FDP | 8th | 18th |
| NPD | 7th | 17th |
| Others | 8th | 59 |
The CDU achieved the highest percentage of votes in seven of the eight electoral areas. Die Linke won the election with 26.4 percent in the Hanseatic city of Rostock. In the three districts of Mecklenburg Lake District , Rostock , Northwest Mecklenburg and Ludwigslust-Parchim , the SPD lost its position as the strongest party. In Schwerin , the CDU replaced Die Linke as the strongest party.
Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, like the AfD and the FDP, are represented in all district assemblies and municipal councils of the independent cities. The NPD made it into parliament in all seven electoral areas in which it ran. In Schwerin, the party was not up for election. The other parties and electoral groups have won seats in seven out of eight district assemblies or municipal councils of the independent cities . In the district of Rostock and in the district of Mecklenburg Lake District, one individual applicant each made it into the district council.
| Party / group of voters | Electoral area | Share of votes in% |
|---|---|---|
| Alliance farmers and rural areas | Ludwigslust-Parchim | 5.9 |
| Farmers' Association and Rural Areas | Western Pomerania-Ruegen | 3.6 |
| Citizens for Stralsund | Western Pomerania-Ruegen | 3.6 |
| Free voters in the Rostock district | Rostock district | 4.9 |
| Competence for Western Pomerania | Vorpommern-Greifswald | 9.8 |
| Rural, environment and agriculture | Northwest Mecklenburg | 6.1 |
| Independent citizens FOR Rostock | Rostock | 8.1 |
| Rostock Bund / Free Voters | Rostock | 4.6 |
| Independent citizens | Schwerin | 11.2 |
Web links
- State Returning Officer Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
- Press release from the Ministry of the Interior of October 22, 2013
- NDR dossier on local elections ( Memento from May 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- Preliminary results of the elections of the district councils of the districts and municipal councils of the independent cities in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in 2014 at a glance on the website of the state return officer
Individual evidence
- ^ The State Returning Officer Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , accessed on May 28, 2014.
- ↑ The local elections in 2011 did not take place nationwide, but only in the districts and are therefore not used for comparison.
- ↑ State and Local Election Act (PDF; 187 kB)
- ↑ Shortage of candidates before the 2014 local elections ( Memento from March 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), ndr.de, February 4, 2014.
- ↑ District association brings Left Party new trouble , ndr.de, March 13, 2014.
- ↑ a b This is how right-wing extremists smuggle themselves onto the electoral list , Nordkurier online, March 28, 2014.
- ↑ Election posters are banned from inner cities ( memento from March 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), ndr.de, February 5, 2014.
- ↑ a b Election trend: Local politics decide ( Memento from May 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), NDR online, May 7, 2014, survey from May 2 to 5, 2014.
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