The 2013 Lower Saxony state election was held on 20 January 2013 to elect the members of the 17th

Landtag of Lower Saxony The Lower Saxon Landtag () or the Parliament of Lower Saxony is the state diet of the German state of Lower Saxony. It convenes in Hanover and currently consists of 146 members, consisting of four parties. Since 2022 the majority is a coalitio ...

. The incumbent coalition government of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) 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. I ...

David McAllister David James McAllister (born 12 January 1971) is a German politician who has been a member of the European Parliament since 2014. He is a member of the Christian Democratic Union, part of the European People's Party. He is the current Vice Pre ...

was defeated. 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) formed a government with

The Greens The Greens or Greens may refer to: Current political parties *Australian Greens, also known as ''The Greens'' *Greens of Andorra * Greens of Bosnia and Herzegovina *Greens of Burkina * Greens (Greece) * Greens of Montenegro *Greens of Serbia *Gree ...

which held a slim, one-seat majority.

Stephan Weil Stephan Weil (born 15 December 1958) is a German politician and the leader of the Social Democratic Party in Lower Saxony. On 20 January 2013, the SPD and the Green party won the 2013 Lower Saxony state election by one seat. On 19 February 2013, ...

was subsequently elected Minister-President.

Background

The CDU–FDP coalition had governed since the 2003. In the 2008 state election, the SPD under

Wolfgang Jüttner Wolfgang Jüttner (born 21 March 1948 in Lüdersfeld) is a German politician, representative of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He was his party's candidate for position of chief of state of Lower Saxony in 2008. After his election defeat, he ...

lost more than three percentage points, suffering its worst ever result in Lower Saxony. The FDP retained their status as the third strongest party, leading the Greens by just 0.2%. The Left won 7.1 percent of the vote, crossing the electoral threshold and winning seats for the first time. Most polls taken in early 2012 showed a SPD–Green majority. However, in the lead-up to the election, polls tightened, with the CDU–FDP coalition virtually neck and neck with the SPD–Green coalition. Polling suggested that the FDP's vote could be very close to 5%, which led some officials in the CDU to suggest tactically voting FDP to ensure it met the threshold. Before the election, the SPD and Greens announced their plan to govern and campaign together. The CDU acted independently of the FDP during the campaign, but sought to continue the incumbent coalition. If a CDU–FDP coalition could not be formed, the CDU stated that the SPD would be their second choice. However, the SPD itself rejected the idea of a grand coalition.

Electoral system

The system used was Mixed-member proportional representation. The results in the electoral districts were determined using

FPTP 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 their ...

and the overall result using the

D'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highest ...

Parties

The table below lists parties represented in the 16th Landtag of Lower Saxony.

Opinion polling

Election result

, - , colspan="12", , - ! colspan="2" , Party ! Votes ! % ! +/- ! Constituencies ! List seats ! Total seats ! +/- ! Total seats % , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , Christian Democratic Union (CDU) , align= 1,287,549 , align= 36.0 , align= 6.5 , align= 54 , align= 0 , align= 54 , align= 14 , align= 39.4 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,

(SPD) , align= 1,165,419 , align= 32.6 , align= 2.3 , align= 33 , align= 16 , align= 49 , align= 1 , align= 35.8 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , Alliance 90/The Greens (Grüne) , align= 489,473 , align= 13.7 , align= 5.7 , align= 0 , align= 20 , align= 20 , align= 8 , align= 14.6 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , Free Democratic Party (FDP) , align= 354,970 , align= 9.9 , align= 1.7 , align= 0 , align= 14 , align= 14 , align= 1 , align= 10.2 , - ! colspan=8, , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , The Left (Linke) , align= 112,212 , align= 3.1 , align= 4.0 , align= 0 , align= 0 , align= 0 , align= 11 , align= 0 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,

Pirate Party Germany The Pirate Party Germany (german: Piratenpartei Deutschland), commonly known as Pirates (), is a political party in Germany founded in September 2006 at c-base. It states general agreement with the Swedish Piratpartiet as a party of the informa ...

(Piraten) , align= 75,603 , align= 2.1 , align= 2.1 , align= 0 , align= 0 , align= 0 , align= ±0 , align= 0 , - , , 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= 39,714 , align= 1.1 , align= 0.6 , align= 0 , align= 0 , align= 0 , align= ±0 , align= 0 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , Others , align= 49,960 , align= 1.4 , align= , align= 0 , align= 0 , align= 0 , align= ±0 , align= 0 , - ! align=right colspan=2, Total ! align= 3,574,900 ! align= 100.0 ! align= ! align= 87 ! align= 50 ! align= 137 ! align= 15 ! align= , - ! align=right colspan=2, Voter turnout ! align= ! align= 59.4 ! align= 2.4 ! colspan="5", , - , colspan="12"
Lower Saxon Returning Officer
, -

Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lower Saxony State Election, 2013 2013 elections in Germany

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...

January 2013 events in Germany