User:Obama89/North Rhine-Westphalia state election, 1995

The North Rhine-Westphalia state election, 1995 was held on May 14, 1995 to elect 221 members of the Landtag (state legislature) of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The incumbent state government at that time was a SPD majority government led by Johannes Rau taht tried to defen its majority after 15 years in power. The main oppsition was the CDU led by Helmut Linssen sice 1990.

The election took place several months after Helmut Kohl was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany for the fifth time after his CDU/CSU/FDP coaltion government defended its majority in the 1994 federal election. Thus, this state election had the potential to result in possible alternative coaltions which could be a useful model for the forming of the next federal goverment.

As a result of this state election, the SPD government lost its majority in the Landtag so that it had to form a coaltion with the Greens who doubled their share of votes and seats compared to 1990. Despite maintainig its share of votes the CDU was far away of forming a government as its most probable coaltion partner, the FDP failed to surpass the 5%-threshold needed to gain seats in the Landtag.