Why doesn’t the strongest party have to continue governing?

Kai Wegner, the CDU’s top candidate

The Christian Democrats are almost ten percentage points ahead of the second-placed SPD.

(Photo: dpa)

Berlin Even before the result of the election of the new House of Representatives was known in Berlin, the result of the election was scandalized. Red-Green are preparing an “election robbery” was the headline.

If the CDU becomes the strongest force in the capital, then the party must of course also provide the governing mayor.

After the CDU actually triumphed, the CDU claimed the government mandate for itself. “The government mandate rests with the strongest force. Point,” said CDU General Secretary Mario Czaja. Even in the ranks of the Greens and the SPD, there are some politicians who see the government mandate as being with the conservatives.

The Christian Democrats are almost ten percentage points ahead of the second-placed SPD. The government mandate would not lie with the previously ruling left-wing alliance, which still has a majority, but whose strongest party has just 18.4 percent of the votes.

However, German history is full of examples of things often going differently, with the runner-up leading a government and not the party that won the election. And at both the state and federal level.

Social-liberal coalition in the federal government

The social-liberal coalition under Chancellors Willy Brandt (SPD) and Helmut Schmidt (SPD) would never have existed if the SPD and FDP had left the field to the strongest political force. Because that was also the CDU in 1969.

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The conservatives won the election with 46.1 percent, followed by the SPD with 42.7 percent. But because it was just enough for a majority with the FDP, Willy Brandt seized the moment and became the first social democratic Federal Chancellor.

The election victory of the CDU in 1976 was even clearer. In that year, the conservatives narrowly missed out on an absolute majority with 48.6 percent, while the SPD only managed 42.6 percent. Helmut Schmidt and the FDP didn’t care. They continued their alliance nonetheless.

State elections in Hamburg 2001

In the state elections in Hamburg in 2001, the situation was reversed. At that time, the SPD clearly won with 36.5 percent from the CDU, which only got 26.2 percent. The gap between the SPD and the CDU in the Hanseatic city was about the same as it is now between the CDU and the SPD in Berlin. In Hamburg, the second-placed CDU then formed the government with Ole von Beust and forged a coalition with the right-wing populist Ronald Schill.

Baden-Wuerttemberg 2011

The gap between first place and second place in Baden-Württemberg in 2011 was even clearer than in Hamburg. At that time, the CDU got 39 percent of the votes, the second-placed Greens were far behind with 24.2 percent.

Winfried Kretschmann

Winfried Kretschmann became the first green prime minister.

(Photo: IMAGO/Chris Emil Janssen)

And yet there was a change of power because it was enough for an alliance of green and red. Winfried Kretschmann thus became the first green prime minister. Not just in the country, but nationwide. And it is to this day.

Thuringia 2014 and 2019

In Thuringia, three years after the election, something similar to that in Baden-Württemberg was repeated. Bodo Ramelow was the first politician from the Left Party to become prime minister. And he also managed to do this from second place. Here, too, the CDU, with 37.7 percent, was well ahead of the Left Party, which had 29.4 percent. But Red-Red had a majority and elected Ramelow as the new father of the country.

That is Ramelow to this day – with a brief interruption in 2019. Although Ramelow won the election at the time with 31 percent ahead of the AfD and the CDU, there was no majority.

Bodo Ramelow

Bodo Ramelow was the first politician from the Left Party to become prime minister.

(Photo: IMAGO/photo booth)

Then the CDU and FDP, which had barely made it into the state parliament with five percent of the votes, suddenly elected FDP politician Thomas Kemmerich as Prime Minister with the votes of the AfD. A scandal that is making waves in Germany. After three days in office, Kemmerich resigned.

Lower Saxony 1955: The laughing third party

Even before the events in Thuringia, an unusual election had taken place in Lower Saxony in 1955. In the state elections, the SPD clearly won with 35.2 percent. Nevertheless, a conservative coalition was formed consisting of the CDU, the German Party (DP), the All-German Block/Association of Expellees and the Disenfranchised, and the FDP.

Although the CDU is the strongest party in this coalition, the incumbent CDU prime minister, Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf, still has to resign after nine years, and the coalition elects Heinrich Hellwege from the DP as prime minister. The reason for this is said to have been internal quarrels in the CDU. A few years later, however, the problem solved itself: in 1961, Hellwege joined the CDU.

>> Read here: Five surprising facts about the economic power of the capital

All the examples show: as complicated as politics is when it comes to power, it’s really quite simple: the majority is the majority. A third-placed party can then nominate a prime minister.

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