Bremen "state" election (May 13, 2007)

[Middle-aged Europe]

Quick facts:

- The German city-state of Bremen will hold elections on May 13.

- This will be the only regular state election this year.

- Bremen is the German state with both the smallest area and population.

- The state of Bremen consists of two parts: the city of Bremen and the city of Bremerhaven.

- In order to win seats in the state parliament, a party has to pass the 5%-clause in only one of the two parts of the state (for example, in 2003 the FDP received only 4.2% of the state-wide vote, but they managed to get 5.7% in the city of Bremerhaven, which entitled them to a single seat in the state parliament).

- Aside from Hamburg, Bremen has the only remaining state parliament with a four-year term instead of a five-year term.

- Historically, Bremen is THE SPD stronghold. The last time the SPD hasn't been the largest party in the state parliament was after the 1921 election (though the CDU came close in 1995 and the Nazis kept them from power between 1933 and 1945).

- Bremen is also the West German state where the PDS/Left Party is traditionally the strongest (8.4% in the 2005 federal election). In addition, the right-wing extremist DVU is known for being electorally successful in the city of Bremerhaven.

- Since 1995, Bremen is governed by a Grand coalition (SPD+CDU). The current mayor is Jens Böhrnsen (SPD, of course), who has served in this capacity since November 2005.




The results of the 2003 state election:

SPD 42.3% / 40 seats
CDU 29.8% / 29 seats
Greens 12.8% / 12 seats
Schill 4.4 % / 0 seats
FDP 4.2% / 1 seat
DVU 2.3% / 1 seat
PDS 1.7% / 0 seats


City of Bremen only:

SPD 43.3% / 34 seats
CDU 29.4% / 23 seats
Greens 13.5% / 10 seats
Schill 4.3% / 0 seats
FDP 3.9% / 0 seats
PDS 1.8% / 0 seats
DVU 1.4% / 0 seats


City of Bremerhaven only:

SPD 36.9% / 6 seats
CDU 31.8% / 6 seats
Greens 8.9% / 2 seats
DVU 7.1% / 1 seat
FDP 5.7% / 1 seat
Schill 4.8% / 0 seats
PDS 1.1% / 0 seats





Strangely enough, not a single opinion poll has been released in recent months. I will post the first one as soon as it comes out. For those of you, who are capable of reading German I recommend the Wahl-O-Mat's political party test: http://www.wahl-o-mat.de/bremen/main_app.php




What has to be expected of this election or why might it be interesting?

- Political observers assume that it is not out of question that the Left Party will win seats in the state parliament this time... which would be the first time ever that the PDS or Left Party wins seats in a West German state parliament.

- It is unclear whether mayor Böhrnsen will continue the coalition with the CDU. He inherited this Grand coalition from his predecessor and Böhrnsen himself is not seen as a major fan of the CDU.

- Considering that the 1995 and 1999 elections were both relatively close, it is not totally impossible that CDU could become the strongest party for the first time ever in this election.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Note: this is a strict fixed list vote, with Bremen and Bremerhaven representing separate electorates with the no. of seats for each fixed.

A Bremerhaven city assembly will be elected at the same time. The Bremen representatives double as Bremen's city assembly.

Thanks. I wasn't exactly sure anymore how that part worked, so I thought I leave it to you.


And I have added a map for the 2003 election up there.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The Schill party isn't relevant anymore... neither in Bremen nor in any other parts of Germany. Just included their results for the sake of completeness, because they did better than FDP, DVU, or PDS last time.

The only relevant players this time around are SPD, CDU, Greens... and maybe the Left Party, FDP, and DVU.


Well, also worth a mentioning is "Bremen muß leben!" (which translates into, and don't laugh, "Bremen must live!"), which more or less took over the role of the Schill party from 2003. "Bremen must live!" is a recently found regionalist/archconservative/right-wing populist/anti-establishment/protest/somewhat insane political party which is also contesting in this election.

The founder and leader of "Bremen must live!" is Joachim Siegerist, who was a member of the CDU until the 80ies, when he left the party just a short time before they would have kicked him out. Siegerist had gained notoriety by campaigning for a release of former Nazi party official and convicted war criminal Rudolf Heß from prison.

After the end of the Cold war he succesfully obtained the Latvian citizenship (his father was Latvian and a member of the Waffen-SS during WWII) and started a short, but spectacular career in politics there. In 1993, he was elected to the parliament of Latvia as a member of the nationalist LNNK. Shortly after, he was kicked out of this party (something that often seems to happen to him) and he started his own one. In the 1995 parliamentary election his new party became the second largest political force in Latvia and apparently his bid for becoming the country's  prime minister just narrowly failed back then.

Well, his Latvian party is long gone now and he's back in Germany to run for the state parliament of Bremen...

[Middle-aged Europe]

The first poll was released today.


Infratest-dimap (04/26)

SPD: 42%
CDU: 26%
Greens: 14.5 %
Left Party: 5.5 %
FDP: 5%
DVU: 2%
Other parties: 5%

[Middle-aged Europe]

That has to be a disappointing result for the CDU.

I'm surprised that there aren't more defectors to the Greens and/or Die Linke from the SPD in an attempt to force the SPD into a left-wing coalition.

Well, according to this poll the Greens will indeed improve their result. Plus, the SPD and mayor Böhrnsen seem to favour an end of the Grand coalition anyway.

SPD/Left hasn't been really discussed as an option yet and my take is that the SPD isn't very keen to from a government with them. The SPD and the Greens should be able to get enough votes to form a two-party coalition of their own.

But it's just a first opinion poll... let's wait and see.


For comparison, the results of the last opinion poll before the 2003 election and the results of the actual election:

SPD 38% -> 42.3%
CDU 36% -> 29.8%
Greens 12% -> 12.8%
FDP 5% -> 4.2%
Schill 2% -> 4.4%
DVU 2% -> 2.3%
PDS 2% -> 1.7%

[Middle-aged Europe]

New poll (Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, 05/04)

SPD: 40%
CDU: 28%
Greens: 14%
FDP: 6%
Left: 4.5%
DVU: 4%
Other parties: 3.5%

[Middle-aged Europe]

Election is today. Up until now, the SPD refused to officially commit itself to a coalition with either the CDU or the Greens (or any other party for that matter).

[Middle-aged Europe]

The polls have closed 45 minutes ago.



ARD projection (6:16 p.m.)
SPD: 37.8% / 32 seats
CDU: 25.2% / 22 seats
Greens: 16.5% / 15 seats
Left: 8.6% / 7 seats
FDP: 5.6% / 5 seats
DVU: 2.5% / 1 seat
BIW: 1.0% / 1 seat

note: BIW stands für "Bürger in Wut" (Citizens in Rage) and is one of those tiny right-wing protest parties.


ZDF projection (6:23 p.m.)
SPD: 37.3% / 33 seats
CDU: 26.4% / 23 seats
Greens: 16.5% / 14 seats
Left: 8.6% / 7 seats
FDP: 5.5% / 5 seats
DVU: 2.4% / 1 seat



Greens and the Left Party are apparently the big winners of this election.

The SPD just announced to hold coalition talks with both the CDU and the Greens (perhaps just a strategic maneuver to squeeze as much as possible out of the Greens during the negotiations?).

[Middle-aged Europe]

Update:

- Apparently, the FDP is barely passing the 5% threshold in the city of Bremen at the moment. If they drop below 5.0% they will only keep their single MP from Bremerhaven (where they definitely passed 5% again).

- Similarly, the BIW dropped to 4.9% in Bremerhaven now, which could mean they won't win a seat after all.

- A few statistics: 16.5% is the best result the Greens ever had in any German state election. The Left Party's result is the best they (or the PDS/WASG) ever had in a West German state election.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Preliminary official results


State of Bremen
SPD: 36.8% / 33 seats
CDU: 25.7% / 23 seats
Greens: 16.4% / 14 seats
Left: 8.4% / 7 seats
FDP: 6.0% / 5 seats
DVU: 2.7% / 1 seat
Other parties: 4.0% / 0 seats


City of Bremen
SPD: 37.2% / 27 seats
CDU: 25.8% / 19 seats
Greens: 17.3% / 12 seats
Left: 8.7% / 6 seats
FDP: 5.4% / 4 seats
DVU: 2.2% / 0 seats
Other parties: 3.4% / 0 seats


City of Bremerhaven
SPD: 34.9% / 6 seats
CDU: 25.2% / 4 seats
Greens: 12.0% / 2 seats
FDP: 8.8% / 1 seat
Left: 6.9% / 1 seat
DVU: 5.4% / 1 seat
Other parties: 6.8% / 0 seats


Since the BIW has literally missed the 5% threshold by a razor-thin margin (see post above) there will be a recount in Bremerhaven.

What do we learn from the BIW's example? EVERY VOTE COUNTS.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Map:

[Middle-aged Europe]

Results for the seperately elected city council of Bremerhaven


SPD: 33.6% / 16 seats
CDU: 23.7% / 12 seats
Greens: 12.6% / 6 seats
FDP: 9.6% / 5 seats
Left: 6.1% / 3 seats
DVU: 5.5% / 3 seats
BIW: 5.4% / 3 seats

[Middle-aged Europe]

Oh, and that one Green Stadtteil in the port area looks weird.

That's Werderland.


Votes per party there (not precentages, individual people):

Greens 47
SPD 43
CDU 26
FDP 9
Left 8
Bremen must live 7
REP 3
PBC 1



Still beats the "Stadtbremischer Überseehafen Bremerhaven", where only two of the ten registered voters went to the polls. Both of them voted CDU... giving them a landslide victory of 100%.

[Middle-aged Europe]

And as Red-Green seems more likely than a continued Grand Coalition, may I present the new leader of the left-wing opposition, Peter Erlanson:

a.k.a. Reinhold Messner

[Middle-aged Europe]

Update:

The state executive of the SPD has recommended to begin coalition talks with the Greens. The CDU has announced that they aren't available for a coalition anymore.

[Middle-aged Europe]

You forgot Saarland, where the Left Party is polled at 13% (full Oskar power!).