The Politics of Hesse 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 Hesse. The state has a multi-party system where, as in most other states of former Western Germany and the federal level, the two main parties are the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the centre-left Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
The governments and ministers-President (Ministerpräsidenten) of the People's State of Hesse during the time of the Weimar Republic were:
The governments of the National Socialist era:
The governments and ministers-President of Hesse since the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany:
Since 1950, the SPD has been in the Hesse government 45 years, the CDU for 14 years; the FDP acted as coalition partners with either CDU of SPD for 21 years (13 with SPD, 8 with CDU).
The Hesse state election of 2008 for the state government (Landtag of Hesse) saw CDU support collapse, and it was widely assumed that the CDU would not participate in the new government. Outoing CDU minister-president Roland Koch, did lose his majority. However opposing parties were unable to form a coalition. The Greens and FDP rejected jointly sharing power with the CDU or SPD. This meant that the SPD and Greens needed to reach out to the new far-left Left party bloc of Landtag members, something very unpopular with most SPD members.
After two unsuccessful attempts to form a coalition from SPD and Greens with support from The Left, all parties except the SPD agreed to dissolve the parliament and call for early elections in January 2009. These were held, and popular anger at the bungling of the SPD delivered enough seats to form a new CDU-FDP coalition.
The results of the most recent election in Hesse were as follows:
| Party | Ideology | Vote % (change) | Seats (change) | Seat % | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Christian Democratic Union (CDU) | Christian Democracy | 37.2% | +0.4% | 46 | +4 | 39.0% | |
| Social Democratic Party (SPD) | Social Democracy | 23.7% | -13.0% | 29 | -13 | 24.6% | |
| Free Democratic Party (FDP) | Classical liberalism | 16.2% | +6.8% | 20 | +9 | 17.0% | |
| Alliance '90/The Greens (GRÜNE) | Green politics | 13.7% | +6.2% | 17 | +8 | 14.4% | |
| The Left (Die Linke) | Democratic socialism | 5.4% | +0.3% | 6 | 0 | 5.1% | |
| Free Voters (FW) | Various, lean right | 1.6% | +0.7% | ||||
| National Democratic Party (NPD) | Ethnic nationalism | 0.9% | 0 | ||||
| The Republicans (REP) | National conservatism | 0.6% | -0.4% | ||||
| Pirate Party (PIRATEN) | Civil rights | 0.5% | +0.2% | ||||
| Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo) | LaRouche movement | 0.2% | +0.2% | ||||
| All Others | -- | 0% | -1.4% | ||||
| Total | 100.0% | 120 | +10 | 100.0% | |||
Turnout was at 61.0%, down from 64.3% in 2008. 61.0% marks the lowest turnout for a Landtag election in Hesse's history. Only the non-binding 1946 election (while Hesse was still under military occupation) had a lower turnout.
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