The 2006 Rhineland-Palatinate state election was held on 26 March 2006 to elect the members of the

Landtag of Rhineland-Palatinate The Rhineland-Palatinate Landtag is the state diet of the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Article 79, Section 1 of the Rhineland-Palatinate constitution provides: "The Landtag is the supreme organ of political decision-making, el ...

. The incumbent

coalition government A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...

of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

(SPD) and Free Democratic Party (FDP) led by

Minister-President A minister-president or minister president is the head of government in a number of European countries or subnational governments with a parliamentary or semi-presidential system of government where they preside over the council of ministers. It ...

Kurt Beck Kurt Beck (born 5 February 1949) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who served as the 7th Minister President of Rhineland-Palatinate from 1994 to 2013 and as the 55th President of the Bundesrat in 2000/01. In May 2006, ...

retained its majority. However, as the SPD won an outright majority, the FDP chose not to continue the coalition. Beck was subsequently re-elected as Minister-President.

Campaign and issues

The election was one of the first held under the

grand coalition A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political parties of opposing political ideologies unite in a coalition government. The term is most commonly used in countries where there are t ...

federal government. Thus, the SPD and CDU did not attack each other as harshly as previously. The SPD was expected to benefit from the personality of

, while the CDU ran again with their leader

Christoph Böhr Christoph is a male given name and surname. It is a German language, German variant of Christopher (given name), Christopher. Notable people with the given name Christoph * Christoph Bach (musician), Christoph Bach (1613–1661), German musician * ...

, who had already lost the 2001 election.

Parties

The table below lists parties represented in the previous Landtag of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Opinion polling

Election result

, - ! colspan="2" , Party ! Votes ! % ! +/- ! Seats ! +/- ! Seats % , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,

(SPD) , align= 799,377 , align= 45.6 , align= 0.8 , align= 53 , align= 4 , align= 52.5 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , Christian Democratic Union (CDU) , align= 574,329 , align= 32.8 , align= 2.5 , align= 38 , align= 0 , align= 37.6 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , Free Democratic Party (FDP) , align= 140,865 , align= 8.0 , align= 0.2 , align= 10 , align= 2 , align= 9.9 , - ! colspan=8, , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,

Alliance 90/The Greens Alliance 90/The Greens (german: Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, ), often simply referred to as the Greens ( ), is a Green politics, green List of political parties in Germany, political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 as the merger of The Greens ...

(Grüne) , align= 81,411 , align= 4.6 , align= 0.6 , align= 0 , align= 6 , align= 0 , - , bgcolor=#FF8000, , align=left , Labour and Social Justice (WASG) , align= 44,826 , align= 2.6 , align= New , align= 0 , align= New , align= 0 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , The Republicans (REP) , align= 29,919 , align= 1.7 , align= 0.7 , align= 0 , align= ±0 , align= 0 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,

Free Voters Free Voters (german: Freie Wähler, FW or FWG) in Germany may belong to an association of people which participates in an election without having the status of a registered political party. Usually it involves a locally organized group of voters ...

(FW) , align= 27,652 , align= 1.6 , align= 0.9 , align= 0 , align= ±0 , align= 0 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , National Democratic Party (NPD) , align= 21,056 , align= 1.2 , align= 0.7 , align= 0 , align= ±0 , align= 0 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , Others , align= 33,675 , align= 1.9 , align= , align= 0 , align= ±0 , align= 0 , - ! align=right colspan=2, Total ! align= 1,753,110 ! align= 100.0 ! align= ! align= 101 ! align= ±0 ! align= , - ! align=right colspan=2, Voter turnout ! align= ! align= 58.2 ! align= 4.0 ! align= ! align= ! align=

Sources

Rhineland-Palatinate State Statistics Office
{{Rhineland-Palatinate state elections 2006 elections in Germany

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...