State election in Hesse 1999

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1995State election 19992003
(in %)
 %
50
40
30th
20th
10
0
43.4
39.4
7.2
5.1
2.7
2.2
Otherwise.
Gains and losses
compared to 1995
 % p
   6th
   4th
   2
   0
  -2
  -4
+4.2
+1.4
-4.0
-2.3
+0.7
± 0.0
Otherwise.
    
A total of 110 seats
Coat of arms of Hesse.svg
Election poster of the CDU

The elections for the 15th Hessian Landtag took place on February 7, 1999. Although the research institutes had predicted an election victory for the red-green state government and the emergence of the SPD as the strongest party, the CDU was able to increase significantly by 43.4% and increase its lead over the SPD compared to 1995. While the latter was able to post slight gains in votes, the great loss of votes by the GREENS meant that the previous state government lost its majority. The FDP came with 5.1% just over the 5% hurdle .

initial situation

In the previous state elections in 1995 , the SPD and the Greens won a majority of the seats despite losses, so that the previous red-green coalition with Prime Minister Hans Eichel could be continued. The incumbent had thus prevailed against his challenger, the CDU top candidate and Federal Interior Minister Manfred Kanther .

The state elections on February 19, 1995 brought the following result:

Final result 1995
Political party Voting share Seats
CDU 39.2% 45
SPD 38.0% 44
GREEN 11.2% 13
FDP 7.4% 8th

The opinion polls before the election predicted a clear confirmation of the red-green coalition. Profits for the SPD and slight losses for the CDU were forecast.

Institute date CDU SPD FDP GREEN Others
Polis 01/30/1999 36% 41% 8th % 10% 5%
Research group elections 01/29/1999 39% 42% 5.5% 8.5% 5%
Infratest Dimap 01/28/1999 37.5% 42% 7% 10% 3.5%
Forsa 01/20/1999 36% 40% 7% 11% 6%
Infratest Dimap 01/14/1999 39% 42% 6% 9% 4%

Top candidates

The SPD ran with Prime Minister Hans Eichel as the top candidate. The opposing candidate of the CDU was parliamentary group leader Roland Koch .

The PDS had decided not to run for the election and called for the election of red-green. The Greens traditionally went into the election campaign with a dual leadership. Priska Hinz and Rupert von Plottnitz headed the Green List. Ruth Wagner was the top candidate for the FDP .

Acceding parties and candidates

The following parties were available nationwide:

  1. CDU - Christian Democratic Union of Germany
  2. SPD - Social Democratic Party of Germany
  3. GREENS - ALLIANCE 90 / THE GREENS
  4. FDP - Free Democratic Party
  5. REP - THE REPUBLICANS
  6. The Animal Welfare Party - Human Environment Animal Welfare
  7. THE WOMEN - Feminist Party THE WOMEN
  8. PASS - Labor and Social Security Party / Party of the Unemployed and Socially Vulnerable
  9. DKP - German Communist Party
  10. BüSo - Civil Rights Movement Solidarity
  11. FWG - Free Voters Community - Voting Group Hessen
  12. PBC - Party of Faithful Christians
  13. DHP - German Home Party ... the National Liberals
  14. NATURAL LAW - NATURAL LAW PARTY, THE START TO A NEW CONSCIOUSNESS
  15. ödp - Ecological Democratic Party
  16. NPD - National Democratic Party of Germany
  17. BFB-The Offensive - BUND OF FREE CITIZENS - OFFENSIVE FOR GERMANY, The Freedom

Election campaign

The election campaign was shaped in particular by the debate about the CDU / CSU signature campaign against the reform of German citizenship law and thus overlaid by national political influences (see: election analysis).

On issues of state politics, the CDU denounced the cancellation of lessons at Hessian schools and promised the setting of 3,000 new lessons and a teaching guarantee . A second focus was internal security. The focus here was on the number of prison escapes that the opposition considered too high.

Official end result

Since 1999 Prime Minister: Roland Koch

The state election on February 7, 1999 brought the following result:

Constituency votes National votes
agree
completely
% Electoral
kreisbe-
tors
Direct
MAN
date
agree
completely
% Seats
Eligible voters 4,282,397 4,282,397
Voters 2,845,586 66.45 2,845,586 66.45
Valid votes 2,791,846 98.11 2,800,372 98.41
CDU 1,265,942 45.34 55 34 1,215,783 43.42 50
SPD 1,158,663 41.50 55 21st 1,102,544 39.37 46
GREEN 168,325 6.03 55 201.194 7.18 8th
FDP 98,095 3.51 55 142,845 5.10 6th
REP 79.273 2.84 55 75.114 2.68
Animal welfare 2,056 0.07 3 12,856 0.46
BFB 8,760 0.31 34 10,811 0.39
FWG 405 0.01 1 10,057 0.36
THE WOMEN 1,745 0.06 6th 6,691 0.24
NPD 2,231 0.08 7th 5,933 0.21
PBC 2.164 0.08 13 4,999 0.18
DKP 1,181 0.04 6th 3,881 0.14
NATURAL LAW 1,515 0.05 11 2,499 0.09
ödp 138 0.00 1 2,053 0.07
PASSPORT 95 0.00 1 1,909 0.07
BüSo 627 0.02 9 612 0.02
DHP 91 0.00 1 591 0.02
Others 540 0.02 6th -
Total 2,791,846 100 374 55 2,800,372 100 110

The only slight gains of the SPD contrasted with gains of 4.2 percentage points from the CDU. This gave the CDU and FDP a very narrow majority. Roland Koch (CDU) became the new Prime Minister .

Elective test

The election review court at the Hessian state parliament ruled against the objections to the election in a judgment of July 1, 1999 and declared the election to be valid. On March 3, 2000, the electoral examination court decided to resume the electoral examination process (note: the electoral examination court is not, as the name suggests, an independent court, but a political body). The occasion was the CDU donation affair . The CDU's undeclared funds were also used to finance parts of the CDU's election campaign. The basis for the resumption was the provision in Article 78, Paragraph 2 of the Hessian Constitution , which stipulated that significant acts that violate common decency and that influence the election result make the election invalid. With a judgment of February 8, 2001, the Federal Constitutional Court clarified the interpretation, whereupon the electoral examination court had to discontinue the proceedings. The State Court of Hesse confirmed the legality of this setting in a judgment dated February 13, 2002.

Election analysis

According to analyzes by Infratest dimap, the result of the elections was primarily due to federal political issues. Infratest writes "The population was largely satisfied with the economic situation and their own financial situation, they gave the SPD good marks in the government and ascribed it the greatest competence in important political areas."

According to the poll by Infratest on the election day, the issue of dual citizenship was decisive for the election: Almost every second CDU voter and over 60 percent of those who switched from another party to the CDU stated that they had chosen the Union for this reason, especially since the CDU voted for theirs Had carried out a signature campaign during the election campaign. Infratest found that the election was shaped by the familiar pattern that the governing parties in the federal government suffered defeat in state elections. What was unusual in Hesse was that it was the small parties, the Greens and the FDP, that suffered losses.

Consequences

Hesse

Roland Koch was elected Prime Minister of Hesse for the first time on April 7, 1999. He headed a black and yellow government ( Koch I cabinet ). The newly formed CDU-FDP government set new accents in Hesse's domestic policy , particularly in school policy (recruitment of 3,000 teachers as part of the teaching guarantee ), transport policy ( traffic jam-free Hessen ) and domestic policy (tightened penal system, reinforcement of the police).

Beyond Hessen

The election result was generally interpreted as a lesson for the Federal Schröder government. In particular, the attempt by the federal government to introduce dual citizenship was seen as the cause of the change in Hesse. The red-green federal government had to forego the implementation of its plan and passed a significantly weakened version (the so-called option model ).

As a direct consequence of the election results in Hesse, on April 12th, Hans Eichel succeeded Oskar Lafontaine , who resigned in March, as finance minister in the federal government with Gerhard Schröder as chancellor.

With the election in Hesse, the majority in the Bundesrat changed . There the countries have 69 votes. Before the election, the states with sole SPD government (13 votes) and red-green (18 votes) were in the minority, but together with the SPD / PDS-governed federal states (7 votes), the parties of the federal government had a majority. This stood against 21 votes from the countries ruled by the opposition. 12 votes were cast for coalitions between the FDP or CDU and SPD. After the election, Hesse's five votes moved to the opposition camp. Without the consent of at least one federal state with the FDP or CDU government participation, a majority in the Bundesrat was no longer possible.

See also

literature

  • Research group elections : State elections in Hesse. An analysis of the election of February 7, 1999 , Mannheim 1999.
  • Wolfgang Hecker: New elections in Hesse? Regarding the question of a renewed examination of the state elections of 1999 by the Hessian electoral examination court , Darmstadt 2000.
  • Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck: The Hessian state election of February 7, 1999. The change after the change , in: Journal for parliamentary questions , 1/2000, pp. 3-17.
  • Hans-Joachim Veen : Analysis of the state elections of February 7, 1999 in Hessen , Sankt Augustin 1999, ISBN 3-933714-05-2 . (Internal studies / Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung , 178)

Web links

Commons : State election in Hesse 1999  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ State elections in Hesse 1946–2009 Hessian State Statistical Office
  2. Election polls, quoted from Wahlrecht.de
  3. ^ Final result of the state elections on February 7, 1999 (StAnz. 9/1999 pp. 637-666)
  4. ^ Judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court of February 8, 2001, 2 BvF 1/00 ​​- (BVerfGE 103, 111 ff.)
  5. Judgment of the State Court of February 13, 2002 ( Memento of the original of February 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.staatsgerichtshof.hessen.de
  6. Brief analysis by Infratest
  7. Coalition Agreement 1999 (PDF; 3.3 MB)