Politics of Schleswig-Holstein

The Politics of Schleswig-Holstein takes place within a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic, where the Federal Government of Germany exercises sovereign rights with certain powers reserved to the states of Germany including Schleswig-Holstein. The state has a multi-party system where the two main parties are the rightist Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the leftist Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The South Schleswig Voter Federation is a small political party present only in this state that represents the Danish and Frisian minorities.

Since the creation of the Federal Republic in 1945, the state's Minister-Presidents have been:

Period	Minister-President	Party
1945–1947	Theodor Steltzer
1947–1949	Hermann Lüdemann
1949–1950	Bruno Diekmann
1950–1951	Walter Bartram
1951–1954	Friedrich-Wilhelm Lübke
1954–1963	Kai-Uwe von Hassel	(CDU)
1963–1971	Helmut Lemke
1971–1982	Gerhard Stoltenberg	(CDU)
1982–1987	Uwe Barschel	(CDU)
1987–1988	Henning Schwarz	(CDU)
1988–1993	Björn Engholm	(SPD)
1993–2005	Heide Simonis	(SPD)
2005–2012	Peter Harry Carstensen	(CDU)
2012–	Torsten Albig	(SPD)

Election results summary since 1947

Year	SPD	CDU	SSW1	FDP	BHE2	Green3
19474	43,8	34,1	9,3	5,0
19505	27,5	19,8	5,5	7,1	23,4
19546	33,2	32,2	3,5	7,5	14,0
19587	35,9	44,4	2,8	5,4	6,9
1962	39,2	45,0	2,3	7,9	4,2
19678	39,4	46,0	1,9	5,9
1971	41,0	51,9	1,4	3,8
1975	40,1	50,4	1,4	7,1
1979	41,7	48,3	1,4	5,7		2,4
1983	43,7	49,0	1,3	2,2		3,6
1987	45,2	42,6	1,5	5,2		3,9
1988	54,8	33,3	1,7	4,4		2,9
19929	46,2	33,8	1,9	5,6		5,0
199610	39,8	37,2	2,5	5,7		8,1
2000	43,1	35,2	4,1	7,6		6,2
2005	38,7	40,2	3,6	6,6		6,2
2009	25,4	31,5	4,3	14,9		12,4
2012	30,4	30,8	4,6	8,2		13,2

Year	Total	SPD	CDU	SSW1	BHE2	FDP	Grüne3
1947	70	43	21	6
19505	69	19	16	4	15	8
19546	69	25	25		10	5
1958	69	26	33	2	5	3
1962	69	29	34	1		5
19678	73	30	34	1		4
1971	73	32	40	1
1975	73	30	37	1		5
1979	73	31	37	1		4
1983	74	34	39	1
1987	74	36	33	1		4
1988	74	46	27	1
19929	89	45	32	1		5
1996	75	33	30	2		4	6
2000	89	41	33	3		7	5
2005	69	29	30	2		4	4
2009	95	25	34	4		14	12
2012	69	22	22	3		6	10

¹ SSV in 1947
² 1954-8: GB/BHE, 1962: GDP
³ 1979: GLSH, 1983-92: Grüne, 1996-: B’90/Grüne
⁴ 1947: FDP: 4,97%, others: KPD: 4,7%, DKonP: 3,1 %
⁵ 1950: others: DP: 9,6% (7 seats), DRP: 2,8%, KPD: 2,2 %
⁶ 1954: others: SHB (DP und SHG) 5,1% (4 seats), KPD: 2,1 %
⁷ 1958: others: DP: 2,8 %
⁸ 1967: others: NPD: 5,8% (4 seats)
⁹ 1992: Grüne: 4,97%, others: DVU: 6,3% (6 seats)
¹⁰ 1996: others: DVU: 4,3%

2005 state election

See also: Schleswig-Holstein state election, 2005

Seat results — SPD in red, Greens in green, SSW in blue, FDP in yellow, CDU in black

Since 2005, the state has been governed by a grand coalition of the CDU and SPD. Prior to the Schleswig-Holstein state election of 2005, the state had been run by a coalition of the SPD and the Alliance '90/The Greens led by Heide Simonis who had a majority between them of three seats. Following the election both the SPD-Green and the CDU-Free Democratic Party coalitions were short of a majority and the South Schleswig Voter Federation (SSW) refused to enter into coalition with either side.

Following the election, the SSW announced that they saw more common ground with the SPD than the CDU and so Premier Heide Simonis initially reformed the Red-Green coalition with the assumption of SSW backing. On March 17, 2005, Simonis failed to win a Landtag vote for the premiership, with the secret ballot tying 34–34. It is not known who the abstainer was, but this prevented the formation of a Red-Green coalition. The SPD then negotiated a grand coalition with the CDU, acceding to the CDU's demand that CDU leader Peter Harry Carstensen replace Simonis as Minister-president.

Party	Party List votes	Vote percentage (change)		Total Seats (change)		Seat percentage
Social Democratic Party (SPD)	554,844	38.7%	−4.4%	29	−12	42.0%
Christian Democratic Union (CDU)	576,100	40.2%	+5.0%	30	−3	43.5%
Free Democratic Party (FDP)	94,920	6.6%	−1.0%	4	−3	5.8%
Alliance '90/The Greens	89,330	6.2%	+0.0%	4	−1	5.8%
South Schleswig Voter Federation (SSW)	51,901	3.6%	−0.5%	2	−1	2.9%
National Democratic Party (NPD)	27,656	1.9%	+0.9%	0	+0	0.0%
Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS)	11,376	0.8%	−0.6%	0	+0	0.0%
Family	11,774	0.8%	+0.8%	0	+0	0.0%
Grays	7,523	0.5%	+0.3%	0	+0	0.0%
All Others	9,203	0.6%	−0.5%	0	+0	0.0%
Totals	1,434,627	100.0%		69	−20	100.0%

See also

• Schleswig-Holstein state election, 2000