Saarland state election, 2012

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25 March 2012

All 51 seats of the Landtag of the Saarland
26 seats needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer	Heiko Maas	Oskar Lafontaine
Party	CDU	SPD	Left
Last election	19 seats, 34.5%	13 seats, 24.5%	11 seats, 21.5%
Seats before	19	13	11
Seats won	19	17	9
Seat change		4	2
Popular vote	169,594	147,160	77,612
Percentage	35.2%	30.6%	16.1%
Swing	0.7%	6.1%	5.4%

	Fourth party	Fifth party	Sixth party

Leader	Jasmin Maurer	Simone Peter	Roland Körner
Party	Pirates	Green	Family
Last election	Did not contest	3 seats, 5.9%	0 seats, 2.0%
Seats before	0	3	0
Seats won	4	2	0
Seat change	4	1
Popular vote	35,646	24,248	8,393
Percentage	7.4%	5.0%	1.7%
Swing	7.4%	0.9%	0.3%

	Seventh party

Leader	Oliver Luksic
Party	FDP
Last election	5 seats, 9.2%
Seats before	5
Seats won	0
Seat change	5
Popular vote	5,871
Percentage	1.2%
Swing	8.0%

Minister-President before election

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer
CDU

Minister-President designate

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer
CDU

The Saarland state elections, 2012 were held in Saarland on 25 March 2012. The CDU, led by incumbent Minister-President Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, received a plurality of the vote and formed a grand coalition with the SPD. On 9 May, Kramp-Karrenbauer was re-elected as Minister-President.

The Jamaica Coalition, led by the CDU, collapsed on 6 January 2012. The decision was based on internal problems within the Free Democratic Party.Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Minister-President of Saarland and chairwoman of the Saarland Christian Democratic Union, stated that "[a] credible and reliable cooperation is no longer completely possible in this coalition." The CDU went into coalition talks with the Social Democratic Party that ultimately failed, which prompted the snap election.

The following opinion polls were conducted during the campaign:

Having been reelected as the largest party in the Landtag, CDU was tasked with forming the government. Minister-President Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said that she was seeking to form a grand coalition with the SPD, which have 37 seats altogether. Both parties reached a coalition agreement on 24 April 2012. The CDU and SPD would control 3 ministries each. Kramp-Karrenbauer will also head the new government which will be sworn in 9 May 2012.

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