Schleswig-Holstein state election, 2005

Schleswig-Holstein state election, 2005
Schleswig-Holstein
20 February 2005[1]
All 69 seats of the Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Peter Harry Carstensen Heide Simonis Wolfgang Kubicki
Party CDU SPD FDP
Last election 33 41 7
Seats won 30 29 4
Seat change Decrease3 Decrease12 Decrease3
Popular vote 576,095 554,879 94,935
Percentage 40.2% 38.7% 6.6%
Swing Increase5.0% Decrease4.4% Decrease1.0%
  Fourth party Fifth party
 
Leader Anne Lütkes Anke Spoorendonk
Party Green SSW
Last election 5 3
Seats won 4 2
Seat change Decrease1 Decrease1
Popular vote 89,387 51,920
Percentage 6.2% 3.6%
Swing Steady0% Decrease0.5%
Minister-President before election

Heide Simonis
SPD

 Elected Minister-President

Peter Harry Carstensen
CDU

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

The Schleswig-Holstein state election, 2005, was conducted on February 20, 2005, to elect members to the Landtag (state legislature) of Schleswig-Holstein.

Issues and Campaign

Surveys before the election indicated that most voters considered high unemployment in Germany and Schleswig-Holstein to be the key issue of the campaign. Pre-election polls indicated that the personal popularity of Heide Simonis was still high, though, and that the SPD-Green coalition would continue to have the support of a plurality of voters. However, the unpopularity of the national SPD and the Hartz IV reforms appear to have taken a toll.

Results

The announced results are as follows.[1] Note that there is a considerable reduction in the number of Landtag seats.

Political 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%

Post-election

After the election, the SPD-Green coalition no longer commanded a majority of the Landtag. The SSW announced that although it would not enter a coalition, it saw more common ground with the SPD than the CDU. Premier Heide Simonis proceeded to form an SPD-Green coalition based on an agreement with the SSW backing it.

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, though it is widely believed to have been a representative of her own party. Since the SPD-Green coalition had fallen with her leadership, the SPD was forced to negotiate a grand coalition with the CDU, acceding to the CDU's demand that CDU leader Peter Harry Carstensen replace Simonis as Minister-president.

References

  1. 1 2 "Endgültiges Ergebnis der 2009er Landtagswahl in Schleswig-Holstein" (PDF) (in German). Landeswahlleiter. 2010-01-28. Retrieved 2012-05-05.
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