South Baden - Politics

Politics

For the first year of its existence, South Baden was directly governed by the French military administration. After local elections in December 1946, the Badische Christlich-Soziale Volkspartei (BCSV) emerged as the strongest party and its leader, Leo Wohleb, was appointed by the French administration as president of the state secretariat. In April 1947, the BCSV became associated with the federal Christian Democratic Union (CDU), renaming itself to CDU Baden and was thus a predecessor of CDU Baden-Württemberg.

On 24 July 1947 the first and only state elections were held in Baden, with Wohleb's CDU winning an absolute majority of 55.9%. The SPB - the Baden branch of the SPD - came second with 22.4%. Since the French military administration still held many key executive powers in Baden, a single-party government was not possible despite the CDU's absolute majority. Attempts to form an all-party government failed, owing to disagreements regarding the inclusion of the Communist party (KPD). Eventually, a grand coalition between the CDU and SPB was formed, with Wohleb as minister-president. After the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany and the end of French administration, single-party governments were again permitted and the coalition was no longer needed; from 1949 until 1952, Wohleb governed Baden at the head of a CDU-only government.

Read more about this topic:  South Baden

Famous quotes containing the word politics:

    The [nineteenth-century] young men who were Puritans in politics were anti-Puritans in literature. They were willing to die for the independence of Poland or the Manchester Fenians; and they relaxed their tension by voluptuous reading in Swinburne.
    Rebecca West (1892–1983)

    I have come to the conclusion that the closer people are to what may be called the front lines of government ... the easier it is to see the immediate underbrush, the individual tree trunks of the moment, and to forget the nobility the usefulness and the wide extent of the forest itself.... They forget that politics after all is only an instrument through which to achieve Government.
    Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)

    Politics begin where the masses are, not where there are thousands, but where there are millions, that is where serious politics begin.
    Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)