The 2010 North Rhine-Westphalia state election was held on 9 May 2010 to elect the 15th Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia. The outgoing government was a coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Free Democratic Party (FDP) led by Minister-President Jürgen Rüttgers.
The election was a defeat for the incumbent government, but failed to produce a clear outcome. The CDU suffered its worst-ever result, falling over ten percentage points to just 34.6%. The opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD) led by Hannelore Kraft also recorded a decline and finished just 0.1% behind the CDU; both parties tied on 67 seats. The Greens recorded their best result to date with 12%, while the FDP achieved a small swing to 6.7%. The newly-formed Left party won 5.6% and 11 seats. Neither the incumbent CDU–FDP government (80 seats) or prospective SDP–Green coalition (90 seats) achieved a majority in the Landtag, with The Left narrowly holding balance of power.
Complex talks took place between all five parties, with the CDU and SPD each aiming for a coalition with the Greens and FDP, or a grand coalition between the two of them. The SPD and Greens also held talks with The Left. All discussions ended without success by mid-June. On the 17th, the SPD and Greens announced they would attempt to form a minority government led by Hannelore Kraft. They ruled out a confidence arrangement with The Left, but nonetheless relied on the party's abstention for the government's investiture to succeed. Kraft was elected Minister-President on 14 July on the second ballot, which required only a simple majority, with 90 votes in favour, 80 against, and eleven abstentions.
Electoral system
The Landtag is elected via mixed-member proportional representation. 128 members are elected in single-member constituencies via first-past-the-post voting. 53 members are then allocated using compensatory proportional representation. Voters have two votes: the "first vote" for candidates in single-member constituencies, and the "second vote" for party lists, which are used to fill the remaining seats in a way that achieves proportionality overall. The minimum size of the Landtag is 181 members, but if overhang seats are present, proportional leveling seats will be added to ensure proportionality. An electoral threshold of 5% of valid votes is applied to the Landtag; parties that fall below this threshold are ineligible to receive seats. This was the first state election in which voters had two votes.
Background
In the previous election held on 22 May 2005, the SPD suffered a landslide defeat and was ousted from government for the first time since 1966. They received only 37% of votes while the CDU emerged in a strong first place with almost 45%; the FDP and Greens each took 6%. The CDU and FDP subsequently formed a coalition government under Jürgen Rüttgers.
Parties
The table below lists parties represented in the 14th Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia.
A total of 25 parties ran state lists in the election. Due to the newly-introduced two vote system, parties were able to stand their lists on ballots statewide without running candidates in every constituency, as had been the case previously. 1,000 signatures were required for a party to run a state list. In addition to the parties running lists, some stood only constituency candidates. A number of independent candidates also ran.
Campaign
Education policy was an important topic in the election campaign. The government wanted to retain the existing three-tier school system, and pointed out that during their tenure attendance had improved and many new teaching positions had been created. The opposition criticised the state's poor performance in PISA studies, and campaigned for the establishment of schools which integrated more younger and older students to improve efficiency, as well as the abolition of tuition fees.
The CDU was embroiled in a financing scandal in the lead up to the campaign, with companies accused of paying bribes in exchange for meetings with Minister-President Rüttgers. A Bundestag investigation found no violation of party finance laws. Shortly before the election, another scandal surfaced in which the CDU was accused of covertly commissioning a voters' initiative from a non-partisan communications agency, with the fundraising money allegedly used to pay for pro-Rüttgers newspaper ads under non-party branding. The allegations were sourced from intercepted emails from the NRW CDU and published mostly anonymously online. The CDU lodged a complaint with the state prosecutor over data breaches, but attributed the accusations to a malicious defamation campaign.