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.[1][2]
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.[3] 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.[4] 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.
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.[5]
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4.2%
