The 2021 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election was held on 26 September 2021 to elect the 8th
Landtag of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
The Landtag of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is the people's representative body or the state parliament of the German federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Thus it is also a constitutional body of the state.
The Landtag convenes in Schwerin and curre ...
.
The incumbent government is a coalition 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
Fo ...
(SPD) and
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) 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. I ...
Manuela Schwesig
Manuela Schwesig (' Frenzel, born 23 May 1974) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party serving as Minister President of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern since 4 July 2017. She is the first woman to serve as head of government of this state. P ...
.
The SPD won a landslide plurality of almost 40% of votes, a nine
percentage point increase from 2016. The opposition
Alternative for Germany (AfD) remained the second largest party but declined to under 17%. The CDU recorded its worst ever result in the state with 13.3%, while
The Left also declined to 10%.
Alliance 90/The Greens and the
Free Democratic Party (FDP) both won around 6% of votes and re-entered the Landtag after previously falling out in 2016 and 2011, respectively.
After the election, the SPD chose to form a coalition with The Left rather than renew their government with the CDU. Schwesig was re-elected as Minister-President on 15 November with 41 votes out of 79.
Election date
The Landtag is elected for a period of five years in accordance with Article 27 of the Constitution of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. An election may be held between 58 and 61 months after the first sitting of the previous Landtag. As the 7th Landtag first sat on 4 October 2016, the election must be held between 4 August to 4 November 2021. It must take place on a Sunday.
On 12 January 2021, the state government designated 26 September as the date of the election, coinciding with the
federal parliamentary election.
Electoral system
The Landtag is elected via
mixed-member proportional representation. 36 members are elected in
single-member constituencies
A single-member district is an electoral district represented by a single officeholder. It contrasts with a multi-member district, which is represented by multiple officeholders. Single-member districts are also sometimes called single-winner vot ...
via
first-past-the-post voting
In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...
. 35 members are then allocated using compensatory proportional representation. Voters have two votes: the "first vote" for candidates in single-member constituencies, and the "second vote" for
party lists, which are used to fill the proportional seats. The minimum size of the Landtag is 71 members, but if
overhang seat
Overhang seats are constituency seats won in an election under the traditional mixed member proportional (MMP) system (as it originated in Germany), when a party's share of the nationwide votes would entitle it to fewer seats than the number of ...
s are present, proportional
leveling seats will be added to ensure proportionality. An
electoral threshold
The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can ...
of 5% of valid votes is applied to the Landtag; parties that fall below this threshold are excluded from the Landtag.
Background
In the previous election held on 4 September 2016, the SPD remained the largest party with 30.6% of the vote, a loss of 5.0
percentage points.
Alternative for Germany (AfD) contested their first election in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, placing second with 20.8%. The CDU won 19.0%, a loss of 4.0 points, while
The Left won 13.2%, a loss of 5.2 points.
The SPD–CDU coalition which had governed since 2006 retained its majority and was renewed for a third term.
Parties
The table below lists parties currently represented in the 7th Landtag of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
Campaign
Lead candidates
On 7 August 2020, the state CDU elected
Michael Sack, district administrator of
Vorpommern-Greifswald
Vorpommern-Greifswald is a district in the east of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is bounded by (from the west and clockwise) the districts of Mecklenburgische Seenplatte and Vorpommern-Rügen, the Baltic Sea, Poland ( West Pomeranian Voivo ...
, as its new leader. He was also selected as the party's lead candidate for the 2021 state election.
On 28 January 2021, parliamentary group leader
Simone Oldenburg was nominated as lead candidate for The Left.
Opinion polling
Results
Aftermath
Minister-President Schwesig claimed victory after the release of exit polls and spoke of "a wonderful evening for our state and the SPD." CDU leader Michael Sack and general-secretary Wolfgang Waldmüller both described the party's result as a "catastrophe". Despite the AfD's losses, state chairman Leif Erik-Holm voiced his satisfaction with the result, particularly the decline of the CDU. Simone Oldenburg, the lead candidate for The Left, stated that the result was a mandate for a shift to the left in the government. Harald Terpe of the Greens described their performance as "promising" but said that many of the party's key issues are still not a high priority for the state's voters.
Government formation
The SPD declined to commit to a coalition partner after the election, but a two-party government with either the CDU or The Left was mathematically possible. A
traffic light coalition
In German politics, a traffic light coalition (german: Ampelkoalition) is a coalition government of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and Alliance 90/The Greens. It is named after the parties' tra ...
with the Greens and FDP also holds a majority. Minister President Schwesig described a "stable majority" with "reliable partners" as key to the formation of a new government.
On 13 October 2021, Schwesig announced the SPD would enter coalition talks with The Left. She stated her motivations for reorienting the coalition as a desire for "a new departure", and described The Left as a "social, pragmatic party" with decisive policy overlap with the SPD. She said that The Left had been a reliable partner to the government even while in opposition, and had assumed "state-political responsibility" during the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
.
A coalition agreement between the SPD and The Left was agreed to on 5 November and signed on 13 November. Schwesig was re-elected as Minister-President on 15 November with 41 votes in favour, 35 against, and three abstentions. In the new cabinet, the SPD has six ministers and the Left has two: Simone Oldenburg as education minister and Jaqueline Bernhardt as justice minister.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election, Next
2021 elections in Germany
Elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Opinion polling in Germany