Politics of Hesse

The Politics of Hesse takes place within a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic, where the Federal Government of Germany exercises sovereign rights with certain powers reserved to the states of Germany including Hesse. The state has a multi-party system where the two main parties are the rightist Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the leftist Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

Governments

The Prime Ministers of the People's State of Hesse during the time of the Weimar Republic were:

# 1919 - 1928: Carl Ulrich
# 1935 - 1945: Jakob Sprenger

The Prime Ministers ("Ministerpräsident") of Hesse since the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany have been:

# 1945: Ludwig Bergstraesser
# 1945 - 1946: Karl Geiler
# 1946 - 1951: Christian Stock (SPD)
# 1951 - 1969: Georg-August Zinn (SPD)
# 1969 - 1976: Albert Osswald (SPD)
# 1976 - 1987: Holger Börner (SPD)
# 1987 - 1991: Walter Wallmann (CDU)
# 1991 - 1999: Hans Eichel (SPD)
# since 1999: Roland Koch (CDU)

Elections

The most recent election was the Hesse state election of 2008 for the state diet (Landtag of Hesse). In that election the outgoing Prime Minister, Roland Koch, lost his majority. However neither party was able to form a coalition. Both The Greens and FDP rejected talks with the CDU and SPD respectively. Since then Koch has been acting Prime Minister with partial support by the FDP against a majority of SPD, Greens and The Left.

ee also

* Rulers of Hesse - for the hereditary rulers of the Grand Duchy of Hesse prior to 1919.