Last election 15 September 2013 | Seats 187 Next election 2018 | |
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President of the Landtag Barbara Stamm, CSUSince 20 October 2008 Political groups Government CSU (101)Opposition (79) SPD (42) FW (19) The Greens (18) | ||
The Landtag of Bavaria (State Diet of Bavaria) is the unicameral legislature of the state of Bavaria in Germany. The parliament meets in the Maximilianeum.
Contents
Elections to the Landtag are held every five years and have to be conducted on a Sunday or public holiday. The following elections have to be held no earlier than 59 months and no later than 62 months after the previous one, unless the Landtag is dissolved.
The most recent elections to the Bavarian Landtag were held on 15 September 2013.
History
The Landtag of Bavaria was founded in 1818, in the Kingdom of Bavaria. Originally it was called the Ständeversammlung and was divided into an upper house, known as the Herrenhaus (house of lords) or Kammer der Reichsräte (chamber of imperial counsellors), and a lower house, the Abgeordnetenhaus or Kammer der Abgeordneten. In 1848 the Ständeversammlung was renamed the Landtag (state diet).
In the Weimar Republic, from 1919 on, under the Bamberg Constitution, the upper house of the Landtag was abolished and its lower house became Bavaria's first democratic assembly. In 1933, in Nazi Germany, the Landtag suffered Gleichschaltung like all German state parliaments. It was dissolved on 30 January 1934.
After the Second World War, the new Constitution of Bavaria was enacted and the first new Landtag elections took place on 1 December 1946. Between 1946 and 1999 there was again an upper house, the Senate of Bavaria.
Results of the 2013 Elections
The CSU regained the absolute majority of the seats, which they lost 5 years ago after about 50 years of one-party-government. The FDP didn't top the 5%-threshold for gaining seats. SPD, GRÜNE and FW will stay in opposition. A record number of 14.1% of the votes won't be represented in the Landtag because of the 5%-threshold.
Composition of the Landtag
The state government is formed by the CSU. Günther Beckstein has been Minister-President of Bavaria since September 2007, when he succeeded Edmund Stoiber, who had been Minister President since 1998. In October 2008 Horst Seehofer became the current Ministers-President. Their mutual party, the CSU, has dominated the Bavarian Landtag for nearly the entire post-war period.
The CSU's 2003 election victory was the first time in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany that any party had won a two-thirds majority of seats in an assembly at any level.
Five years later in 2008, the CSU saw a stunning reversal of fortunes, and failed to win a majority of seats in Bavaria for the first time in 46 years. In the aftermath of this result, the SPD floated the idea that the four other parties should all unite to form a government excluding the CSU, as it had "lost its mandate to lead." The FDP were not interested.
Election results 1946–2013
Source:"Wahlergebnisse seit 1946" (PDF). Bavarian Landtag. Retrieved 2008-06-06.
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