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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.
Contents
Since the creation of the Federal Republic in 1945, the state's Minister-Presidents have been:
Election results summary since 1947
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
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.