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Rhineland Palatinate state election, 2016

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13 March 2016 (2016-03-13)
  
2021 →

42 seats, 35.7%
  
41 seats, 35.2%

42
  
41

Date
  
13 March 2016

Turnout
  
70.4 %

41 seats, 35.2%
  

41
  

Rhineland-Palatinate state election, 2016 httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

The 2016 Rhineland-Palatinate state election was held on 13 March 2016 to elect all 101 members to the Landtag of Rhineland-Palatinate. Seats are allotted by proportional representation with a 5% threshold. State elections were held on the same day in Baden-Württemberg and Saxony-Anhalt.

Contents

After the election, Malu Dreyer of the Social Democratic Party led a coalition government of her party with Greens and Free Democratic Party, nicknamed the "traffic light coalition".

Polls

The reference for the polls is wahlrecht.de.

Post-election

A coalition of the existing ruling parties, the SPD and the Greens, would not have sufficient votes in the Landtag to be able to muster a majority (they would have 45 seats – 7 short of a majority). Neither would a coalition of the CDU and the returning FDP (they would have 42 seats – 10 seats short). A große Koalition (‘grand coalition’) of the SPD and CDU would have an absolute majority of 22 seats, but with the SPD having ruled out a grand coalition with Klöckner and the CDU ahead of the election, Dreyer looks most likely to work towards a "traffic light coalition," which would see the SPD, Free Democrats (FDP), and Greens join forces. These three parties would be able to form a state government with the SPD holding 39 seats, the Greens 6, and the FPD 7 – this would have a bare majority of 1 vote (52 seats) in the Landtag. A "Jamaica Coalition" of the CDU, FDP, and Greens would fall 4 seats short of the necessary majority. An unlikely, although theoretically possible, coalition between the CDU and AfD would also fall short by 3 seats in the Landtag.

Alternatively, a minority government of the SPD and Greens could take power with the "toleration" of the FDP and/or the CDU, or a FDP/SPD coalition with the toleration of the Greens and/or CDU. This has not had much of a precedent in western Germany, but is entirely possible.

Eventually, a traffic-light coalition between the SPD, The Greens and the FDP was formed, and Malu Dreyer remained the minister-president.

References

Rhineland-Palatinate state election, 2016 Wikipedia