Lower Saxony state election, 2013

  • SPD: 49
  • Green: 20
  • FDP: 14
  • CDU: 54

The election for the 17th Parliament of Lower Saxony took place on 20 January 2013.

  • 6.1 State Political Issues
  • 6.2 Federal Political Issues

Starting position

In the state elections in Lower Saxony in 2008, the CDU clearly strongest force ahead of the SPD with the top candidate Wolfgang Jüttner, with 30.3 percent reached their far worst state election result in Lower Saxony after losses remained under Prime Minister Christian Wulff, despite losses with 42.5 percent of the vote. Third strongest party with slight gains remained the FDP with top candidate Philipp Rösler and 8.2 percent of votes in the slightly strengthened Greens ( 8.0 per cent). The Left went with a score of 7.1 percent for the first time in the state legislature.

The black-yellow coalition retained despite mandate losses, the majority and formed a government under Prime Minister again Christian Wulff ( Wulff Cabinet II). In April 2010, the Cabinet was reshuffled. Wulff entered due to his election to the presidency back on 30 June 2010. On 1 July 2010, the new cabinet under Prime Minister David McAllister (Cabinet McAllister ) was appointed.

Coalition statements: SPD and the Greens wanted after the election to govern together and also fought together during the election campaign. The CDU refused a solid cooperation in the campaign with the FDP, but the party sought a black-yellow coalition after the election on. A coalition with the Greens joined McAllister early 2013. The Left and the Pirate Party were largely left in discussions about possible coalitions outside before. The SPD refused to cooperate with the left and pirates.

Importance

The state election was seen as one of the last mood tests for the election year 2013, where in addition to the federal election in 2013 and the local elections in Schleswig -Holstein queuing even state elections in Bavaria and Hesse. During the election in Bavaria took place on September 15, was elected in Hesse concurrently with the federal election on September 22.

Lower Saxony is the fourth- largest state by population numbers. The formation of a coalition of the SPD and the Greens, who has a slim one- vote majority, had a direct impact on the majority of education in the Bundesrat, since the dismissal of the black-yellow government for loss of 6 votes for the black and yellow stock and has thus led to a majority of the opposition parties ( SPD, Greens, the Left, SSW).

The election was seen as a vote on FDP party leader Philipp Rösler and Secretary General Patrick Doering, both of which are located in Lower Saxony and there have their political roots. In the event that the FDP would not come over the five- percent threshold was expected prior to the election with a resignation Rösler.

Electoral system

The seats in the state parliament will be awarded D' Hondt method after. It is a five-percent hurdle.

Received by one party by the first votes in the constituencies more seats than it is entitled by the second vote share, so these mandates remain an overhang seats. The number of seats is increased by this overhang seats and an equal number of compensatory mandates and the allocation of seats recalculated according to the D' Hondt method. Should also hereafter overhang mandates exist, they left without compensation exist.

Parties and Candidates

The National Election Committee received nominations from 11 country Parties to:

Non-approved country lists

Parties and electoral associations that were not represented in Parliament, had their participation to the October 22, 2012 Show at the State Election Committee and submit at least 2,000 signatures of support to 15 November. The country's election proposals of the German Democratic Party, the Muslim Democratic Union ( MDU ), the PARTY, the no idea of Lower Saxony and the party Common sense Germany were not allowed because the necessary supporting signatures were submitted. The German Center Party, the party seniors, the Family Party of Germany and the party of reason were allowed to vote, but did not place provincial election proposal. For formal reasons, the associations democracy -DD- Germany were German elites Party and left- Liberal Party of Germany not recognized as parties.

Single applicant

In addition to direct candidates of antretenden with country lists parties MDU presented in two constituencies and the ddp, the center, the family party and NO! each in a constituency direct candidates. There were also in the constituencies 13 ( Seesen ), 28 (Hannover -Mitte) and 83 (empty ) one non-party independent candidates.

Demography

The average age of the total of 659 candidates was 48 years. The oldest candidate was 86 years old and was a candidate for the party alliance 21/RRP. The most recent applicants were 18 years old and stood as a candidate for the Pirates and The Left.

About 27 percent were women, 73 percent were men. Alliance 90/The Greens had the highest proportion of women with 47.7 percent of all applicants. Based only on the state list of proposals the percentage of women was highest in the left with 52 percent, followed by the Greens with 50 percent. All other parties were considerably lower. In the constituency candidates, the Greens had among the parties that competed in several constituencies, as well as the highest proportion of women. For them, 47.1 percent of the applicants were women. After the SPD followed with 31 percent of women.

Choice decision aids

For the first time a Wahl-O -Mat was issued for Lower Saxony (see links). It was used over 600,000 times, and thus about 10 percent of the electorate. Abgeordnetenwatch again offered the possibility of a public candidate survey. Spiegel Online launched a candidate check to compare the positions of candidates for a constituency.

From various parties election manifestos were published in " simple language ", including SPD, Alliance 90/The Greens and NPD.

Campaign issues

State Political Issues

Federal Political Issues

Surveys

In the opinion polls to high values ​​were determined for the CDU by about five percent. The FDP was with about ten percent of the vote for almost twice as many votes as predicted. Reason for this difference in votes was that the CDU disclosures than their party preference in the polls, many CDU voters, but then the FDP selected so that the liberals move into the state parliament and could form a coalition with the CDU again.

With Greens and SPD polling organizations submitted appropriate values ​​. The Left has been seen from INFO GMBH few days before the election in parliament, any other institutions said a failure at the five - percent hurdle with three per cent ahead. The Pirate Party unexpectedly cut off badly.

For the Sunday question the pollsters following shares stated in the individual surveys in Lower Saxony:

For the question of who would vote directly for the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, the pollsters gave the following results:

Official final result

The official provisional result was announced from about 23.40 clock on election night, the final result was announced on 31 January.

According to the official results, the CDU receives an overhang mandate and the SPD compensation mandate, so that the parliament has 137 members. SPD and the Greens got together 000000001654892.00000000001.654.892 second votes that are 000000000012372.000000000012.372 more than CDU and FDP together. SPD and the Greens received in the distribution of seats a mandate over the CDU and FDP, so Stephan Weil, David McAllister could replace as prime minister.

For elected officials see list of members of the Lower Saxon Landtag (17th Term).

The turnout was 59.4 per cent ( 2008: 57.1 ). Of the 6,097,697 registered voters (2008: 6,087,297 voters ) were 3,620,434 (2008: 3,476,112 ) options. 51 855 first preference votes (1.4 percent) and 45 534 second votes ( 1.3 percent ) were invalid.

The official result published on 31 January:

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