The 2011 Hamburg state election was held on 20 February 2011 to elect the members of the 20th
Hamburg Parliament
The Hamburg Parliament (; literally “Hamburgish Citizenry” or, more poetically, “Hamburgish Burgess (title), Burgessry”) is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of the German state of Hamburg according to the constitution of Hamburg. ...
. The election was triggered by the collapse of the
coalition government
A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...
between the
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the
Green Alternative List (GAL), which had governed the state since 2008.
The election was a landslide defeat for the CDU, which lost half its voteshare and seats. The margin of defeat for the incumbent Ahlhaus Senate is the largest in post-war German history and has not been met since. Much of this lost support flowed to the
Social Democratic Party
The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology.
Active parties
Form ...
(SPD), which won 62 of the 121 seats in Parliament, forming a majority government led by
Olaf Scholz
Olaf Scholz (; born 14 June 1958) is a German politician who served as the Chancellor of Germany from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party (SPD), he previously served as Vice-Chancellor of Ge ...
.
Background
After the
2008 state election, the CDU formed a coalition government with the GAL. This was the first time such a government had been formed in Germany, as the Greens were seen as aligned with the SPD, typically in opposition to the CDU. Popular CDU mayor
Ole von Beust was seen as a stabilising force for the government. After his retirement in August 2010 and the election of
Christoph Ahlhaus as his successor, relations between the two parties became increasingly strained.
In November 2010, GAL left the government. Ahlhaus formed a minority CDU Senate and the Parliament subsequently voted to dissolve itself and hold early elections.
Parties
The table below lists parties represented in the 19th Hamburg Parliament.
Opinion polling
Election result
See also
*
Elections in Hamburg
The number of elections in Hamburg varies. Hamburg has a state election every five years, the elections for the Hamburg Parliament, state parliament. There are also elections to the Bundestag, federal diet (the lower house of the federal parliame ...
*
Hamburg state elections in the Weimar Republic
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamburg State Election, 2011
2011 elections in Germany
2011 state election
2011
The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...
February 2011 in Germany
Olaf Scholz