Thuringia state election, 2009

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30 August 2009

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All 88 seats of the Landtag of Thuringia

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Dieter Althaus	Bodo Ramelow	Christoph Matschie
Party	CDU	Left	SPD
Last election	45 seats, 43.0%	28 seats, 26.2%	15 seats, 14.5%
Seats won	30	27	18
Seat change	15	1	3
Percentage	31.2%	27.4%	18.5%

	Fourth party	Fifth party

Leader	Uwe Barth	Astrid Rothe-Beinlich
Party	FDP	Green
Last election	0 seats, 3.6%	0 seats, 5.6%
Seats won	7	6
Seat change	7	6
Percentage	7.6%	6.2%

Minister-President before election

Dieter Althaus
CDU

Elected Minister-President

Christine Lieberknecht
CDU

Dieter Althaus
CDU

Christine Lieberknecht
CDU

Thuringia held state elections on 30 August 2009, the same day as the Saarland and Saxony state elections. The election established the composition of the Landtag of Thuringia (Thuringia's parliament). According to the preliminary results, The Left and Social Democratic Party (SPD) together held a bare majority of seats, but a grand coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and SPD was considered possible. The CDU and SPD formed a coalition seven weeks after the election.

Turnout was 56.2%

CDU's leader, Dieter Althaus, resigned in the wake of the election defeat, saying he was taking responsibility for the his party's losing its absolute majority. However, it had also been noted that his remaining in office was a stumbling block to a coalition with the SPD. Both parties preferred that coalition to an SPD-Left-Green coalition: the CDU because such a coalition would leave them in opposition, and the SPD because of personal animosity between its leader, Christoph Matschie, and The Left leader Bodo Ramelow. In the end, a grand coalition of CDU and SPD was formed with new CDU leader Christine Lieberknecht as Minister-President.

In the 2004 election, Minister-President Dieter Althaus was elected to a full term, having replaced Bernhard Vogel prior to the election. Althaus and his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won an absolute majority of 45 out of 88 seats.

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