Schwampel

The day before yesterday, Schleswig-Holstein held a state election, and the Social Democrats lost.

Percentages of votes won and gains or losses (©BZ)

They not only lost, but the so-called incumbent Küstenkoalition,* too. This Coast Coalition comprises Social Democrats, the Greens, and the Südschleswiger Wählerverband (SSW), i.e., the party of the Danish people living near the Danish border in northern Germany. The ruling coalition was abgewählt (down-voted, i.e., defeated).
*Schleswig-Holstein meerumschlungen, i.e., Germany's northern state is bordered in the east by the Baltic Sea and in the west by the North Sea

Number of seats in Schleswig-Holstein's new parliament (©BZ)

The Christian Democrats won the election, but they cannot govern alone with only 24 seats in the state legislature. They need not one but two coalition partners to pass the magic number of 35 seats for a majority in the state parliament.

The Jamaican flag

Here comes in the color-coding Red Baron blogged about before. One possible coalition in Schleswig-Holstein would be an Ampel-Koalition (traffic light coalition), red-yellow-green, between the Social Democrats, the Liberals, and the Greens. As the winner has the first choice to form a coalition, all commentators predict a Schwampel or schwarze Ampel (black traffic light). This will be a coalition between the Christian Democrats, the Liberals, and the Greens, also called Jamaica.

A few remarks are necessary. The AfD, the right-wing Action for Germany, entered the legislature with 5.9% of the vote and 4 seats, while the SSW got 3 seats with only 3.5% of the vote. Note that the so-called 5% hurdle* does not apply to the party of the Danish minority. Meanwhile, the Pirates fell out of the state parliament with only 1.2%, down 7% from the 2012 election.
*A minimum of 5% of the votes for a party is necessary in German elections to be represented in a legislature.

Suddenly the Social Democrats are scared stiff concerning the state election in North Rhine-Westphalia next Sunday, where an incumbent red-green government is at stake.

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