1950 Bavarian state election

1950 Bavarian state election

26 November 1950
All 204 seats in the Landtag of Bavaria 103 seats needed for a majority
Registered	6,026,641
Turnout	4,813,528 (79.9%) 4.2%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Alois Hundhammer Jean Stock Joseph Baumgartner Party CSU SPD BP Seats won 64 63 39 Seat change 40 9 39 Popular vote 2,527,370 2,588,549 1,657,713 Percentage 27.4% 28.0% 17.9% Swing 24.9% 0.6% 17.9%   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Theodor Oberländer Thomas Dehler Party BHE–DG FDP Seats won 26 12 Seat change 26 3 Popular vote 1,136,148 653,741 Percentage 12.2% 7.1% Swing 12.2% 1.4%
Results for the single-member constituencies.
Minister-President before election Hans Ehard CSU Elected Minister-President Hans Ehard CSU

The 1950 Bavarian state election was held on 26 November 1950 to elect the members of the 2nd Landtag of Bavaria. The outgoing government was a majority of the Christian Social Union (CSU) led by Minister-President Hans Ehard.

The CSU suffered an enormous decline of 25 percentage points, and lost first place in the overall vote to the opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD) by a slight margin. However, the CSU narrowly retained a plurality of 64 seats to the SPD's 63 thanks to the regional apportionment of seats. Two new parties entered the Landtag: the Bavaria Party (BP) with 18% of the vote and the All-German Bloc (BHE) with 12%. The Free Democratic Party (FDP) also improved to 7%. The CSU subsequently formed a grand coalition with the SPD, and Minister-President Ehard continued in office.

The 1950 election remains the CSU's worst performance in a Bavarian election and the only occasion they did not win a plurality of the vote.

Background

After the 1946 state elections, the CSU had won a majority of seats in the Landtag, and proceeded to form a coalition government with the SPD and right-wing populist WAV under Minister-President Hans Ehard. The coalition, however, was short lived. On 20 June 1947, WAV party chairman and Minister for Denazification Alfred Loritz was ousted by his fellow party-members over a power struggle involving a fellow state delegate, Karl Meissner. Four days later, on 24 June, Loritz was dismissed from his post on charges of blackmail and patronage. He subsequently was arrested on 19 July 1947, before escaping custody, being re-arrested, and eventually found asylum in Switzerland in April 1948. In his place, a CSU attorney, Ludwig Hagenauer was appointed. Only three months after the Loritz episode, all of the SPD ministers within the government resigned, ending the coalition government, which lasted for under a year. The CSU then ruled alone (still as a majority government) for the remaining three years. In the intervening time, Ehard mainly battled with other member of his party to pass the Basic Law. The electoral system was changed since the 1946 election, now every voter has two votes. One for local district candidate (first vote) and one for a constituency candidate (second vote).

Parties

The table below lists parties represented in the First Landtag of Bavaria.

Name			Ideology	Leader(s)	December 1946 result
					Votes (%)	Seats
	CSU	Christian Social Union in Bavaria Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern	Christian democracy	Alois Hundhammer	52.3	104 / 180
	SPD	Social Democratic Party of Germany Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands	Social democracy	Jean Stock	28.6	54 / 180
	WAV	Economic Reconstruction Union Wirtschaftliche Aufbau-Vereinigung	Right-wing populism	Alfred Loritz	7.4	13 / 180
	FDP	Free Democratic Party Freie Demokratische Partei	Liberalism	Thomas Dehler	5.7	9 / 180

Results

With the WAV now essentially collapsed due to factional disputes, the right-wing vote was scattered over several different parties, the most important being the GB/BHE and the Bavaria Party, which capitalized on nationalism and took votes away from both the WAV and CSU. With the right-wing vote now spread thin, the SPD captured a majority of the first and second votes combined, but were still one seat off of being tied with the CSU's delegation, and neither party being close to a majority. After 17 days of negotiations, a mass coalition between the CSU, SPD, and GB/BHE was declared. On 18 December 1950, Hans Ehard received 131 votes in the Landtag to serve a second term as Minister-President, with 5 votes against, and 36 members abstaining.

Party		Votes								List seats	Total seats	+/-
		Constituency	%	Seats	List	%	Total	%	Swing
	Social Democratic Party (SPD)	1,334,888	28.33	38	1,253,661	27.70	2,588,549	28.02	0.58	25	63	9
	Christian Social Union (CSU)	1,264,993	26.85	46	1,262,377	27.89	2,527,370	27.36	24.93	18	64	40
	Bavaria Party (BP)	862,123	18.30	16	795,590	17.58	1,657,713	17.94	New	23	39	New
	German Community Block of Expellees and Dispossessed (BHE–DG)	586,067	12.44	0	550,081	12.15	1,135,148	12.30	New	26	26	New
	Free Democratic Party (FDP)	334,289	7.09	1	319,452	7.06	653,741	7.08	1.43	11	12	3
	Economic Reconstruction Union (WAV)	132,183	2.81	0	127,504	2.82	259,687	2.81	4.58	0	0	13
	Communist Party of Germany (KPD)	91,750	1.95	0	86,018	1.90	177,768	1.92	4.15	0	0	0
	German Block (DB)	40,454	0.86	0	41,584	0.92	82,038	0.89	New	0	0	New
	Bavarian Homeland and King's Party (BHKP)	29,641	0.64	0	41,448	0.92	71,089	0.77	New	0	0	New
	Electoral Bloc of the War-Damaged, Expelled, and Dispossessed (WKHE)	19,499	0.41	0	32,740	0.72	52,239	0.57	New	0	0	New
	Bloc of Expellees (BdH)	10,074	0.21	0	10,703	0.24	20,777	0.22	New	0	0	New
	Association of Economically and Politically Disenfranchised (VWPE)	5,085	0.11	0	4,254	0.09	9,339	0.10	New	0	0	New
	Nonpartisan Farmers' Emergency Association – Aid for the Bavarian Forest (UBN)	586	0.01	0	796	0.02	1,382	0.01	New	0	0	New
Total		4,711,632	100.00	101	4,526,208	100.00	9,237,840	100.00		103	204	24
Invalid		100,290	2.08		283,561	5.90	383,851	3.99
Turnout		4,811,922	79.84		4,809,769	79.81	9,621,691		4.11
Registered voters		6,026,641			6,026,641
Source: Statistik Bayern and Historisches Lexikon Bayerns

Popular Vote SPD   28.02% CSU   27.36% BP   17.94% GB/BHE   12.30% FDP   7.08% WAV   2.81% KPD   1.92% Other   2.57%

Landtag seats CSU   31.37% SPD   30.88% BP   19.12% GB/BHE   12.75% FDP   5.88%

External links

• Historisches Lexikon Bayerns
• House of Bavarian Elections