The Hessian state elections are expected to take place on October 8th of this year.

According to information from the FAZ, the cabinet will decide on the date on Monday.

It thus follows the tradition of voting in the three months before the end of the electoral period.

This time it is January 17, 2024.

Ewald Hetrodt

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung in Wiesbaden.

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All factions wanted to avoid an election campaign in wintry squares and during the Advent season.

Therefore, only the months of October and November came into question.

Another restriction is the beginning and end of the autumn holidays.

In order not to discourage vacationers from voting, it will not take place on October 22nd or 29th.

In November, the "quiet holidays" that are particularly protected by legislation, i.e. the day of national mourning and the Sunday of the dead, are eliminated.

At least as important for the definition of the black-green coalition is the fact that on October 8th the citizens of Bavaria will be asked to vote.

The question of whether the Hessians should vote on the same day or a week later has occupied all parliamentary groups for weeks.

Review of 2018

In this context, the constellation of the year 2018 also plays a role.

The relationship between the then Prime Minister of Hesse and top candidate of the CDU, Volker Bouffier, and his party friends in the Free State was tense.

With the issue of migration, the CSU initially jeopardized the unity of the Union faction in the Bundestag and then went into its state election campaign with this focus.

On October 14, 2018, she lost her absolute majority.

Two weeks later, the CDU in Hesse fell by more than eleven points and only got 27 percent.

The causes of the disaster included the negative influence attributed to the collapse of the sister party in Bavaria.

The Hessian Greens, on the other hand, saw themselves strengthened by the Bavarian election result and actually gained 8.7 points 14 days later.

Because the CSU is doing much better in the polls today than it was then, the assumed effects of 2018 would not simply be repeated in 2023, according to Wiesbaden.

But the ballot in Bavaria is unanimously seen in the state parliamentary groups as an event that could influence a later election in Hesse.

In order to avoid such incalculable effects, the elections in Hesse are now to take place on October 8th, the day on which the Free State also votes.

As a result, this date is also of particular national importance: about halfway through the parliamentary election period, a total of almost 14 million citizens can vote on the policy of the traffic light government.

With regard to Berlin, your vote is even more important than the elections in the largest federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which, with almost 13 million eligible voters, is generally regarded as the most important national mood barometer.

The cabinet will set the date in Hesse in an ordinance, which will ultimately be decided by the black-green majority in the state parliament.