The 1996 länder elections in Baden‐Württemberg,Rhineland‐Palatinate and Schleswig‐Holstein: The ebbing of the tides of March?

This article analyses the three state elections of March 1996 in Baden‐Württemberg, Rhineland‐Palatinate and Schleswig‐Holstein in the context of both the political history and traditions of each Land in turn as well as the national political context in which they took place. These elections served to strengthen the hand of the Bonn coalition of the CDU–CSU and FDP, eliminating in the process the risk to its slim majority in the Bundestag. The most immediate and fundamental questions arising from these three election results concern the SPD. The main problem for the party is the lack of a credible strategy based on a clear sense of what the SPD stands for today.