2020 Hamburg state election
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The 2020 Hamburg state election was held on 23 February 2020 to elect the members of the 22nd
Hamburg Parliament The Hamburg Parliament (german: Hamburgische Bürgerschaft; literally “Hamburgish Citizenry”) is the unicameral legislature of the German state of Hamburg according to the constitution of Hamburg. As of 2011 there were 121 members in the parli ...
. The outgoing government was 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 For ...
(SPD) and
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 *G ...
led by First Mayor Peter Tschentscher. Despite losses, the SPD remained comfortably in first place with 39% of votes. The Greens doubled their vote share to 24%, becoming the second largest party in the state Parliament for the first time. The opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) suffered their worst ever result in Hamburg, and their worst result in any state election since 1952, falling to third place with 11% of votes. The Left achieved a small upswing and remained in fourth place. The
Alternative for Germany Alternative for Germany (german: link=no, Alternative für Deutschland, AfD; ) is a right-wing populist * * * * * * * political party in Germany. AfD is known for its opposition to the European Union, as well as immigration to Germany. I ...
(AfD) narrowly cleared the 5%
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 ...
, recording a decline compared to its previous result for the first time in any state or national-level election. The Free Democratic Party lost a third of its vote share and fell narrowly short of the 5% electoral threshold, in total winning only one seat from a direct constituency. The SPD–Green government was returned with an increased majority of 87 seats, comprising 71% of the Parliament. The coalition was subsequently renewed. Peter Tschentscher was re-elected Mayor on 10 June.


Issues and campaign


Federal

The Hamburg state election was overshadowed by the Thuringia government crisis, the resignation of
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (; Kramp; born 9 August 1962), sometimes referred to by her initials of AKK, is a retired German politician who served as Minister of Defence from 2019 to 2021 and as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from ...
as federal CDU leader, and a terrorist attack targeting immigrants in Hanau which took place four days before the election.


Local

In the wake of the Thuringia government crisis, approximately 20% of the FDP's election posters in Hamburg were defaced or destroyed. Greens leader Katharina Fegebank stated that such actions "harmed democracy".


Electoral system

The elections were conducted under a list proportional system in the same manner as the prior election. 71 seats were awarded directly in the 17 multi-mandate constituencies (of between 3-5 seats each) via open constituency lists, and the remaining 50 via at-large open state lists () based on percentage of the overall vote with a 5%
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 ...
. Each voter had a total of ten votes: five constituency votes for the direct candidates in the constituency, and five at-large votes for candidates on the state lists (or for state lists in their entirety). The five votes could be amassed all on one person, party, or list (
accumulation Accumulation may refer to: Finance * Accumulation function, a mathematical function defined in terms of the ratio future value to present value * Capital accumulation, the gathering of objects of value Science and engineering * Accumulate (hi ...
) or could be distributed/split between different candidates, parties, or lists as desired (
panachage Panachage (, from French meaning "blend, mixture") is the name given to a procedure provided for in several open-list variants of the party-list proportional representation system. It gives voters more than one vote in the same ballot and allows ...
). Voting privileges were passively awarded, meaning anyone over the age of 18 meeting eligibility requirements was automatically enrolled.


Parties

The table below lists parties represented in the 21st Hamburg Parliament.


Opinion polling


Election result

At one polling booth in Langenhorn, the results for the FDP and Greens were accidentally reversed, meaning the preliminary results placed the FDP only 121 votes above the threshold. The mistake was corrected in the official count which took place over 24 hours later. Exit polls suggested that AfD would miss the threshold while FDP would exceed it, leading to early press reports of an AfD defeat and exclusion of its politicians from post-election debates. , - , align=center colspan=8, , - ! colspan="2" , Party ! Votes ! % ! +/- pp ! Seats ! +/- ! Seats % , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,
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) , align= 1,591,098 , align= 39.2 , align= 6.4 , align= 54 , align= 4 , align= 43.9 , - , 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= 980,361 , align= 24.2 , align= 11.9 , align= 33 , align= 18 , align= 26.8 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , Christian Democratic Union (CDU) , align= 452,372 , align= 11.2 , align= 3.7 , align= 15 , align= 5 , align= 12.2 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , The Left (Linke) , align= 368,471 , align= 9.1 , align= 0.6 , align= 13 , align= 2 , align= 10.6 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,
Alternative for Germany Alternative for Germany (german: link=no, Alternative für Deutschland, AfD; ) is a right-wing populist * * * * * * * political party in Germany. AfD is known for its opposition to the European Union, as well as immigration to Germany. I ...
(AfD) , align= 214,596 , align= 5.3 , align= 0.8 , align= 7 , align= 1 , align= 5.7 , - ! colspan=8, , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , Free Democratic Party (FDP) , align= 201,162 , align= 4.9 , align= 2.5 , align= 1 , align= 8 , align= 0.8 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,
Die PARTEI (''Party for Labour, Rule of Law, Animal Protection, Promotion of Elites and Grassroots Democratic Initiative''), or Die PARTEI (''The PARTY''), is a German political party. It was founded in 2004 by the editors of the German satirical magazi ...
(PARTEI) , align= 56,775 , align= 1.4 , align= 0.5 , align= 0 , align= ±0 , align= 0 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,
Volt Germany Volt Germany (, mostly known by the abbreviated name Volt) is a social-liberal pro-European, eurofederalist political party in Germany. It is the German branch of Volt Europa, a political movement that operates on a European level. Italian And ...
(VOLT) , align= 52,241 , align= 1.3 , align= 1.3 , align= 0 , align= ±0 , align= 0 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , Others , align= 137,785 , align= 3.4 , align= , align= 0 , align= ±0 , align= 0 , - ! align=right colspan=2, Total ! align= 4,054,861 ! align= 100.0 ! align= ! align= 123 ! align= 2 ! align= , - ! align=right colspan=2, Voter turnout ! align= ! align= 63.2 ! align= 6.7 ! align= ! align= ! align=


Government formation

Mayor Tschentscher stated that exploratory talks with the Greens were "the first priority", but that "we will also - if the majorities are confirmed - approach the CDU and hold a conversation." Marcus Weinberg of the CDU stated he was "ready for talks" with the SPD. Lead candidate for the Greens
Katharina Fegebank Katharina Fegebank (born 27 February 1977) is a German politician for the Alliance '90/The Greens, who has served as Second Mayor of Hamburg and Senator for Science, Research and Equality since 2015. She briefly served as acting First Mayor in ...
called for "More red-green, with strong greens in the government." Cansu Özdemir of The Left stated her party wished to remain a strong opposition force. The SPD and Greens came to a coalition agreement at the end of May. The SPD took 7 ministries and the Greens 4, a net gain of one for the Greens. The vote for Mayor took place on 10 June, and Tschentscher was re-elected Mayor with 87 votes in favour, 34 against, and 2 abstentions. The new cabinet was also approved with 83 votes in favour, 38 against, and 2 abstentions.


See also

*
Elections in Hamburg The number of elections in Hamburg varies. Hamburg has a state election every five years, the elections for the state parliament. There are also elections to the federal diet (the lower house of the federal parliament) of Germany, the local el ...
* Hamburg state elections in the Weimar Republic


References


External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamburg state election, 2020 2020 elections in Germany 2020 state election
2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...
February 2020 events in Germany