State election in Saarland in 1955
The state election on December 18, 1955 was the third election in the French protectorate of Saarland and the last election before the Saarland joined the Federal Republic of Germany .
Starting position
After the state elections in 1952 , the Christian People's Party of the Saarland (CVP) and the Social Democratic Party of the Saarland (SPS) formed a government coalition. From 1954 the CVP ruled alone.
As part of the Paris Treaties , the agreement between the governments of the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on the Saar Statute was concluded in 1954 , which provided for a European Saar Statute: the Saarland would therefore remain economically linked to France and would be externally controlled by a commissioner from the Western European Union represented. A referendum was held on this statute on October 23, 1955, in which 67.7% of the Saarlanders rejected the statute.
As a result, Prime Minister Johannes Hoffmann resigned. He was succeeded by the non-party Heinrich Welsch . The state elections were brought forward to December 1955.
In the run-up to the referendum, the parties voting for affiliation with Germany - the Saar Democratic Party (DPS), the German Social Democratic Party (DSP, later Saarland SPD ) and the Saar CDU - were approved. These were united in the Heimatbund . The DPS had been banned since 1951.
Suffrage
The seats were distributed proportionally using the D'Hondt method within the following constituencies :
- Saarbrücken (18 seats): City of Saarbrücken , Saarbrücken district
- Saarlouis (13 seats): the district Merzig-Wadern , district Saarlouis
- Neunkirchen (19 seats): District of Homburg , District of Ottweiler , District of Sankt Ingbert , District of St. Wendel
There was a nationwide five percent hurdle. In contrast to the previous election, in which only people with Saarland citizenship (not recognized by the Federal Republic of Germany) could vote, residents who were born in Saarland or had lived in Saarland for at least five years were also eligible to vote.
Result
The votes and seats were distributed according to the official result as follows:
Saarbrücken constituency |
Saarlouis constituency |
Neunkirchen constituency |
Saarland as a whole |
|||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
number | % | Seats | number | % | Seats | number | % | Seats | number | % | Seats | |
Eligible voters | 250,591 | 167.381 | 246,416 | 664,388 | ||||||||
Voters | 223.185 | 89.1 | 153,564 | 91.7 | 223,447 | 90.7 | 600.196 | 90.3 | ||||
Valid votes | 219.233 | 98.2 | 150.270 | 97.9 | 219,676 | 98.3 | 589.179 | 98.2 | ||||
Total seats | 19 (18) * | 13 | 18 (19) * | 50 | ||||||||
CDU | 38,577 | 17.6 | 3 | 53,769 | 35.8 | 6th | 57.179 | 26.0 | 5 | 149,525 | 25.4 | 14th |
DPS | 70,526 | 32.2 | 7 (6) * | 26,807 | 17.8 | 2 | 45,269 | 20.6 | 4th | 142,602 | 24.2 | 13 (12) * |
CVP | 41,925 | 19.1 | 4th | 38,357 | 25.5 | 4th | 48,376 | 22.0 | 4 (5) * | 128,658 | 21.8 | 12 (13) * |
DSP | 32,039 | 14.6 | 3 | 14,637 | 9.7 | 1 | 37,738 | 17.2 | 3 | 84,414 | 14.3 | 7th |
KP | 15,456 | 7.1 | 1 | 7,371 | 4.9 | 15,871 | 7.2 | 1 | 38,698 | 6.6 | 2 | |
PLC | 16,773 | 7.7 | 1 | 6,040 | 4.0 | 11,472 | 5.2 | 1 | 34,285 | 5.8 | 2 | |
DDU | 1,869 | 0.9 | 1,452 | 1.0 | 1,800 | 0.8 | 5.121 | 0.9 | ||||
CSU | 1,139 | 0.5 | 1,338 | 0.9 | 1,318 | 0.6 | 3,795 | 0.6 | ||||
ÜEVPS | 929 | 0.4 | 499 | 0.3 | 653 | 0.3 | 2,081 | 0.4 |
The allocation of seats to the constituencies was declared unconstitutional by a decision of the Constitutional Commission on April 19, 1956, because the Neunkirchen constituency had one more seat than the Saarbrücken constituency despite the lower number of eligible voters. The constituency of Saarbrücken received an additional seat that went to the DPS list, while the constituency of Neunkirchen lost one seat, which meant that one seat was lost on the CVP list there. As a result, the CVP lost one seat to the DPS.
consequences
The parties of the Heimatbund were able to win a clear majority of the seats and then formed a black-red-yellow coalition under the leadership of Hubert Ney (CDU), who was elected Prime Minister of a Heimatbund government on January 10, 1956 . The accession of the Saarland to the Federal Republic of Germany was decided in the Luxembourg Treaty of October 27, 1956.
See also
Web links
- State election Saarland 1955. In: tagesschau.de . Archived from the original on June 23, 2012 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Valentin Schröder: Germany since 1945: Saarland state elections. In: Elections in Germany. April 23, 2017. Retrieved December 11, 2018 .
- ↑ Law No. 477 regarding the election of the Saarland Landtag on December 18, 1955 (PDF; 462 kB)
- ↑ Saarland Official Gazette of December 22, 1955 (PDF; 85 kB)
- ^ Publication of the decision of the Constitutional Commission of April 19, 1956 in the Saarland Official Gazette of April 20, 1956
- ^ Announcement by the regional returning officer of April 23, 1956 in the Saarland official gazette of April 25, 1956, page 513