@article{2014:faas:die_hessis,
title = {Die hessische Landtagswahl vom 22. September 2013: Schwarz-grüne „hessische Verhältnisse“},
year = {2014},
note = {Although Hesse had left the brief interregnum of so-called “Hessian
peculiarities” after the 2009 state elections and returned to a
bloc-based black-yellow government of CDU and FDP, the legislative
term was nevertheless turbulent. Roland Koch resigned after ten years
of office as Prime Minister and Volker Bouffier followed him. The 2013
state elections coincided with the federal elections. State-specific
aspects were consequently rather rare in the campaign. However,
coalition issues are always particularly gripping in Hesse. Despite
the fact that pre-electoral alliances were in line with the
traditional patterns - red-green, black-yellow -, the parties were
open for other alternatives. On Election Day, the Christian Democrats
came in first. The Social Democrats increased their vote share by
seven percentage points after their disastrous 2009 result. The Greens
received 11.1 percent, FDP and the Left Party just over five. Turnout
was 73.2 percent, up by 12.2 percentage points – a direct result of
the merger of the election dates. The outcome of the election gave
none of the desired coalitions a majority, so there was a long period
of exploratory talks. Ultimately, the Christian Democrats decided to
offer the Greens coalition negotiations. These were concluded swiftly.
In January 2014 Bouffier was confirmed in his office, now heading a
black-green government. [ZParl, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 349 – 365]},
journal = {ZParl Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen},
pages = {349--365},
author = {Faas, Thorsten},
volume = {45},
number = {2}
}