State election in Hesse 2009
The elections for the 18th Hessian state parliament took place on January 18, 2009. They were early elections that had been scheduled as a result of the self-dissolution of the state parliament on November 19, 2008 because of the failure to form a government after the state elections in January 2008 . The incumbent Hessian Prime Minister Roland Koch ran for the Christian Democratic Union , Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel , Member of the State Parliament for the Social Democratic Party of Germany , and Tarek Al-Wazir for Alliance 90 / The Greens . Jörg-Uwe Hahn was the leading candidate for the Free Democratic Party , and Willi van Ooyen stood for the Left Party .
initial situation
In the state elections in 2008 , the CDU lost an absolute majority of the seats. It was now on a par with the SPD and achieved the same number of seats with 42 seats, but gained around 0.1% more votes with 36.8%. The left moved into the Hessian state parliament for the first time with 5.1% of the vote. Neither the CDU came together with their desire partner FDP to the required absolute majority to form a government, nor the SPD could, together with the Greens , the government Koch replace. Before the election, the SPD had ruled out any collaboration with the Left Party and the Greens rejected a coalition with the CDU.
The election of a new prime minister and the formation of a new state government was only possible when the coalition statements made by the parties in the run-up to the state elections were withdrawn . This state of affairs, known as " Hessian conditions " as early as 1982 after the Greens entered the state parliament for the first time, was reissued: Roland Koch was able to continue to exercise his office as prime minister after the constituent session of the new state parliament on April 5, 2008, however only executive.
Formation of a red-green minority government - first attempt
On March 4th, the top candidate of the SPD, Andrea Ypsilanti , gave up the rejection of a cooperation with the Left Party. It was now aiming for a red-green minority government tolerating the Left Party. Despite criticism from within the party, she was initially able to convince the parliamentary group of her plan. However, this was finally thwarted on March 7th by MP Dagmar Metzger , who announced that she would not vote for Ypsilanti on April 5th for reasons of conscience. The already very small majority for Ypsilanti in the state parliament with two votes had shrunk even further to one seat. Ypsilanti then gave up her plan to run for election as prime minister; the coalition negotiations with the Greens were broken off.
Formation of a red-green minority government - second attempt
In order to still achieve a replacement of the Koch government, Ypsilanti now wanted to have its step secured by a broad internal party discussion with several regional conferences. After the end of this period of reflection, during which a large majority emerged in favor of forming a red-green government with the help of the Left Party, coalition negotiations between the SPD and the Greens took place again in October. On November 1, the state party conference of the SPD in Fulda approved the coalition agreement , on November 2 the Greens gave their approval at their state members' meeting. Ypsilanti's election as Prime Minister of Hesse was scheduled for November 4th.
One day before the election, however, surprisingly three other right wing party members of the SPD, Jürgen Walter , Carmen Everts and Silke Tesch , announced that the project of a red-green state government with tolerance of the left for reasons of conscience and because of their rejection of the coalition agreement was not going to be announced to bear. A few days earlier, they had not refused Ypsilanti approval in a trial vote. Thus, the election of Andrea Ypsilantis at the second attempt had finally failed and the required state parliament majority was three votes below.
Early elections
Soon after the failure of the formation of a government on November 3, the CDU, FDP, Greens and Die Linke, and finally the SPD, announced that they wanted to dissolve the state parliament and aim for new elections in January 2009. According to Art. 80 of the Hessian Constitution, the Hessian Landtag could dissolve itself with a simple majority of the members of the Landtag; the new election then had to take place within 60 days.
On November 19, the self-dissolution was decided with the votes of the 99 members of the Hessian state parliament (out of a total of 110). The state government then set the date for the new election on January 18.
The SPD announced on November 8th that Andrea Ypsilanti would no longer run as the top candidate for the elections in the following year. Instead, the member of the state parliament Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel will accept the candidacy. As in the last election, the CDU sent its party chairman and Hessian Prime Minister Roland Koch, who has been in office since 1999, into the race.
Unlike before the January 2008 election, the SPD had not made any statements about the coalition. Roland Koch, however, announced that his party would only form a coalition with the FDP.
Participating parties
The following parties ran for the state election:
| abbreviation | Full name | Leading candidate (age in years) | 2008 result in% |
|---|---|---|---|
| CDU | Christian Democratic Union of Germany | Roland Koch (50) | 36.8 |
| SPD | Social Democratic Party of Germany | Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel (39) | 36.7 |
| FDP | Free Democratic Party | Jörg-Uwe Hahn (52) | 9.4 |
| Green | Alliance 90 / The Greens | Tarek Al-Wazir (38) | 7.5 |
| THE LEFT. | The left | Willi van Ooyen (61) | 5.1 |
| REP | The Republicans | Haymo High (55) | 1.0 |
| FW FREE VOTERS | Free voters Hessen | Walter Öhlenschläger (51) | 0.9 |
| NPD | National Democratic Party of Germany | Jörg Krebs (33) | 0.9 |
| PIRATES | Pirate Party Germany | Nicole Hornung (50) | 0.3 |
| BüSo | Civil rights movement Solidarity | Alexander Hartmann (47) | 0.0 |
Election campaign
The election campaign was very short. In addition to the short preparation time due to the unscheduled appointment, the election campaign in Advent conflicted with the pre-Christmas mood. The parties represented in the state parliament therefore did not post any statements in December, only greetings for the New Year. The only exception was the SPD, which already drew attention to itself with content-related statements regarding its election campaign topics, the energy transition, school policy and minimum wages.
In the election campaign, the Union focused primarily on the economy and stability. In addition to advocating the expansion of the airports in Frankfurt and Kassel and road construction projects in northern Hesse, the CDU tried to portray itself as the party that could best cope with the effects of the financial crisis that had worsened since autumn 2008 .
During the election campaign, the FDP emphasized that it had acted in accordance with the statement made prior to the previous election that it would not enter into a traffic light coalition . The slogan “Our word counts” should also make the contrast to the SPD clear.
Two weeks before the state elections, the SPD general secretary and campaign manager Norbert Schmitt announced his resignation for the beginning of February. On the left, internal party conflicts led to the resignation of a number of members, including the short-term top candidate for the 2008 state election, Pit Metz.
Opinion polls
An opinion poll by Infratest dimap on behalf of the Hessischer Rundfunk on November 6, 2008 showed that 79% of voters were in favor of new elections. The survey took place immediately after Andrea Ypsilanti's attempt to form a government failed. In this survey, the CDU (41%) and FDP (11%) received a clear majority. 27% of the voters spoke out in favor of the SPD. This was almost 10 percentage points less than in the state elections in 2008. While the Greens would benefit from the SPD's losses with 12%, the Left remained at 5%. A move into the state parliament was on the verge of this survey. In a second survey by Infratest dimap on December 4, 2008, the CDU received 41% and the FDP 13% (+2); the Greens improved to 14% (+2), the SPD fell to 23% (−4) and the Left came to 6%.
| Infratest | FW | Forsa | Emnid | GMS | Infratest | FW | Forsa | choice | ||
| date | 04.12.08 | 05.12.08 | 12/16/08 | 12/18/08 | 12/19/08 | 01/08/09 | 01/10/09 | 01/14/09 | 01/18/09 | |
| CDU | 41% | 41% | 42% | 43% | 41% | 42% | 41% | 41% | 37% | |
| SPD | 23% | 26% | 23% | 24% | 25% | 24% | 25% | 24% | 24% | |
| FDP | 13% | 12% | 13% | 13% | 13% | 13% | 13% | 15% | 16% | |
| Green | 14% | 12% | 12% | 11% | 13% | 13% | 13% | 13% | 14% | |
| The left | 6% | 5% | 6% | 5% | 5% | 5% | 5% | 4% | 5% | |
| Other parties | 3% | 4% | 4% | 4% | 3% | 3% | 3% | 3% | 4% |
Official end result
The turnout was 61 percent, the lowest since 1946 . Five parties moved into the new state parliament .
As the strongest party, the CDU emerged from the elections with 37.2%. The SPD lost a lot and achieved its historically worst result in Hesse with 23.7%. The CDU was only able to increase its share of the vote slightly, despite the large losses of the SPD, which were in the double-digit percentage range. In contrast, the FDP (16.2%) and the Greens (13.7%) achieved exceptionally high proportions and increases in votes for their standards. The left succeeded in re-entering the state parliament with 5.4%.
Because of the lower turnout, both the CDU and Die Linke were able to increase their share of the vote, although their number of votes fell.
For the first time in the history of the state elections in Hesse, there were overhang and compensatory mandates . As a result, the state parliament now had 118 members instead of the previous 110. Of the 8 additional mandates, 4 overhang mandates were for the CDU, two compensation mandates for the SPD and one compensation mandate each for the FDP and the Greens.
| Constituency votes | National votes | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| agree completely |
% | Electoral kreisbe- tors |
Direct MAN date |
agree completely |
% | Seats | |
| Eligible voters | 4,375,286 | 4,375,286 | |||||
| Voters | 2,670,385 | 61.03 | 2,670,385 | 61.03 | |||
| Valid votes | 2,580,424 | 96.63 | 2,591,872 | 97.06 | |||
| CDU | 1,083,174 | 41.98 | 55 | 46 | 963.763 | 37.18 | 46 |
| SPD | 767.068 | 29.73 | 55 | 9 | 614,648 | 23.71 | 29 |
| FDP | 304,755 | 11.81 | 55 | 420.426 | 16.22 | 20th | |
| GREEN | 274,492 | 10.64 | 55 | 356.040 | 13.74 | 17th | |
| THE LEFT | 117,300 | 4.55 | 54 | 139,074 | 5.37 | 6th | |
| FREE VOTERS | 3,997 | 0.15 | 3 | 42,153 | 1.63 | ||
| NPD | 18,898 | 0.73 | 34 | 22,172 | 0.86 | ||
| REP | 7,685 | 0.30 | 14th | 15,664 | 0.60 | ||
| PIRATES | - | 13,796 | 0.53 | ||||
| BüSo | 962 | 0.04 | 4th | 4.136 | 0.16 | ||
| Others | 2,093 | 0.08 | 6th | - | |||
| Total | 2,580,424 | 100 | 335 | 55 | 2591.872 | 100 | 118 |
Source:
The elected representatives are listed in the list of members of the Hessian state parliament (18th electoral term) .
Consequences
Hesse
Due to the growth of the FDP in the state elections, there was a clear majority in favor of a black-yellow coalition in the state parliament, which broke through the stalemate that had existed since the state elections in 2008 with a merely executive state government. On February 5th, 2009 Roland Koch was re-elected Prime Minister of a Christian-Liberal coalition and the Koch III cabinet with 3 ministers from the FDP and 7 from the CDU was sworn in.
On the evening of the election, Andrea Ypsilanti assumed responsibility for the SPD's election defeat and resigned as party and parliamentary group leader. He was succeeded in both offices by top candidate Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel.
Nationwide
With the participation of the FDP in government in Hesse from the beginning of February, the grand coalition in the federal government lost the majority in the Federal Council . The arithmetical majority for a re-election of Horst Köhler in the election of the German Federal President in 2009 in the Federal Assembly was slightly increased.
literature
- David Broughton: Seconds out for the second round. The 'Landtagswahl' in Hessen, January 2009 , in: German politics 2/2009, pp. 265–269.
- Rüdiger Schmidt-Beck, Thorsten Faas: The Hessian state election of January 18, 2009. The "eternal cook" , in: Journal for Parliamentary Issues, 2/2009, pp. 358-370.
Web links
- Hessian state returning officer
- Election polls for the state elections in Hesse on wahlrecht.de
- Overview of the state election in Hesse 2009 on wahlrecht.de with further links
Individual evidence
- ↑ State result of the state elections in 2009 ( memento of the original from March 29, 2010 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. The State Returning Officer for Hesse
- ↑ Hessian State Chancellery: After the self-dissolution of the parliament ( Memento of the original of December 23, 2012 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. - Press release of November 19, 2008
- ↑ State elections in Hesse since 1946 on www.statistik-hessen.de
- ^ Welt Online from November 20, 2008
- ^ Spiegel Online from November 12, 2008
- ↑ Financial Times Deutschland: Union disputes coalitions with FDP ( memento from July 30, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) from January 5, 2009
- ↑ Participating parties ( Memento of the original dated February 8, 2009 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.
- ^ Matthias Thieme and Jörg Schindler: "A panorama of misery" in: Frankfurter Rundschau from January 7, 2009 ( Memento from January 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ hr-online.de: Majority for black and yellow ( Memento of the original from November 9th, 2008 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. , accessed November 10, 2008
- ↑ hr-online.de: SPD continues to descend ( memento of the original from December 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Survey Results
- ↑ GMS survey ( Memento of the original from January 29, 2009 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.
- ↑ Election result in: State Gazette for the State of Hesse (StAnz. 8/2009 p. 501) (PDF; 420 kB)
- ↑ Coalition Agreement 2009 (PDF; 463 kB)
