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 coalition ...

. The incumbent

coalition government A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...

of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Free Democratic Party (FDP) led by Minister-President David McAllister 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 Form ...

(SPD) formed a government with

The Greens The Greens or Greens may refer to: Current political parties *The Greens – The Green Alternative, Austria *Australian Greens, also known as ''The Greens'' * Greens of Andorra * The Greens (Benin) *The Greens (Bulgaria) * Greens of Bosnia and He ...

which held a slim, one-seat majority. Stephan Weil 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 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 A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political party, political parties of opposing political spectrum, political ideologies unite in a coalition government. Causes of a grand coali ...

Electoral system

The system used was

Mixed-member proportional representation Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a type of representation provided by some mixed electoral system, mixed electoral systems which combine local Winner-take-all system, winner-take-all elections with a Compensation (el ...

. The results in the electoral districts were determined using FPTP and the overall result using the

D'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is an apportionment method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in proportional representation among political parties. It belongs to ...

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 Alliance 90/The Greens (, ), often simply referred to as Greens (, ), is a Green (politics), green political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 by the merger of the Greens (formed in West Germany in 1980) and Alliance 90 (formed in East Ger ...

(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 (Piraten) , align= 75,603 , align= 2.1 , align= 2.1 , align= 0 , align= 0 , align= 0 , align= ±0 , align= 0 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,

Free Voters Free Voters (, FW) is a political party in Germany. It originates as an umbrella organisation of several Free Voters Associations (), associations of people which participate in an election without having the status of a registered party. These a ...

– Wahlalternative 2013 (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 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

January 2013 in Germany