1939 Weranian federal election

1939 Weranian federal election

14 March 1939
All 584 seats to the House of Deputies 292 seats are needed for a majority in the House of Deputies
Turnout	16,117,435 (79.81%) 3.90%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Lothar Gotthold Dietrich zu Kolbenheyer Hans Doblhoff-Dier Party OSAI KSP Radicals Leader's seat Cislania Roetenberg Bonnlitz-Ostbrücken Last election 224 seats, 37.37% 79 seats, 13.29% 80 seats, 13.41% Seats won 238 97 55 Seat change 14 18 25 Popular vote 6,267,582 2,568,317 1,457,935 Percentage 39.21% 16.07% 9.12% Swing 1.84% 2.78% 4.29%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Gustav Blumentritt Jochen Kammerer Karl Theophil von Pölten Party Landbund SPO OVP Leader's seat Prizen Cislania Prizen Last election 54 seats, 8.99% 56 seats, 9.48% 38 seats, 6.43% Seats won 48 45 44 Seat change 6 11 6 Popular vote 1,268,317 1,206,849 1,158,573 Percentage 7.93% 7.55% 7.25% Swing 1.06% 1.93% 0.82
File:1939 election map.png
Premier before election Gustav Blumentritt Landbund Elected Premier Hans Doblhoff-Dier Radical

The 23^rd federal election was held in the Weranian Confederation for the House of Deputies (the lower house of the Bundestag) on the 14^th March 1939. All 584 members of the House of Deputies were elected under a system of proportional representation with each regierungsbezirke treated as an electoral districts. These would be the second elections held following the Great War after the expiration of the term of the House of Deputies.

The election came as the country suffered from an inflationary spiral in the post-war period triggered by the devaluation of the mark and the removal of wartime price controls. The outgoing centrist government of the Landbund, Radical, Catholic Social, Social Democratic and National Liberal parties led by Landbund leader Gustav Blumentritt was unpopular with its slim parliamentary majority making it increasingly ineffective in passing legislation. In January a dispute over planned wage cuts in line with the government's incomes policy led to the entire Blumentritt cabinet to resign triggering an election to be held a month ahead of schedule.

Persistent economic woes, labour disputes and social polarisation had raised the prospect of left-wing government gaining power. The right however were divided with the National Liberals and Landbund advocating for a centrist government whilst the Catholics and the conservatives advocated for a union of the right. The centre-left Radical party meanwhile was vague surrounding the prospect of entering a government including or supported by the OSAI instead supporting social reform.

The election saw the parties of the outgoing government - the Landbund, NLP, SPO and Radicals - losing seats whilst the OSAI gained, making it the best result for left-wing parties since the 1918 election. The Ruttish Sotirian Democratic Party entered the Bundestag for the first time and the Catholic Social Party re-emerged as the largest non-socialist party. As a result the five party coalition continued its mandate under the Radical Party leadership of Hans Doblhoff-Dier.

Electoral process

The election was held using a system of proportional repsentation that had been introduced in 1905. The country had 76 electoral districts based on the regierungsbezirke with no electoral threshold. Seat totals were calculated via the greatest divisors method.

Background

The previous election had been held in 1935 shortly after the conclusion of the Great War. The five party government that had led Werania since 1922 consisting of the Social Democrats, the Radicals, the Agrarians, Radicals, the Catholics and the National Liberals was reformed under the wartime premier Otto Röttgen. Röttgen and King Leopold IV had an ambitious programme of reform that sought to reshape Weranian politics but the assassination of Leopold IV in September 1936 and Röttgen's resignation five months later led to the reform programme to halt under premier Gustav Blumentritt who focused on the immediate economic troubles in Werania.

The end of the war had not led to demobilisation as had been hoped with thousands of Weranian servicemen continuing to be stationed in occupied-Gaullica. Although rationing had been increasingly phased out since 1936 prices shortages were common. A combination of a reliance on war bonds to finance the war effort and high government borrowing in the post-war reconstruction had caused inflation. Devaluation of the mark was considered as nessecary to increase the competitiveness of exports and inflation needed to reduce the debt burden. However although this caused an increase of real incomes inflation soon outstripped it after the government removed the majority of wartime price controls causing inflation to massively increase.

This uneven economic situation combined with slow progress on promised social reform had caused substantial political unrest in Werania. The combination of the removal of price controls and subsequent inflationary increase, continued poor working conditions and the failure to institutionalise a social contract between capital and labour caused constant left-wing agitation with the Weranian Federation of Workers' (Ostischer Arbeitsverband; OAV) and their political arm the Weranic Section of the Workers' International commonly held strikes in protest of the poor economic conditions and the political exclusion of socialists.

On the right there was a sense that the end of the war and death of King Leopold IV had destroyed the national unity built up in the conflict due to machinations of revolutionary agitators. Many on the right saw the trickle of demobilised troops as the basis of a new political movement that would restore the volksgemeinschaft and eliminate the radical left. The völkisch movement began to gain popularity and influenced the politics of the Catholic, Agrarian and Fatherland parties. The dominant figure in the Catholic party, Dietrich zu Kolbenheyer, was apathetic to the continuation of the five-party government and became close to these reactionary movements.

The unstable economic situation and deteriorating political stability caused tension in the five-party government. In January 1939 the government proposed wage restraint across most sectors of the economy in line with the governments incomes policy causing strikes across the country and heated opposition in the Bundestag. With the policy looking unlikely to pass in the legislature and exhausted by the political and economic turmoil premier Blumentritt announced the resignation of his entire cabinet requesting to the monarch for the dissolution of the House of Deputies for an election for the 14 March.

Parties

Affiliation	Party			Ideology	Spitzenkandidat	1925 result	In government
Left			Weranic Section of the Workers' International	Socialism, Revolutionary socialism	Lothar Gotthold	224 / 584	N
Centre-left			Social Democratic Party of Werania	Social democracy, Reformism	Jochen Kammerer	56 / 584	Y
			Radical Party	Radicalism, Anti-clericalism	Adalbert Nischwitz	80 / 584	Y
Centre-right			Landbund	Agrarianism, Populism	Gustav Blumentritt	54 / 584	Y
			National Liberal Party	National Liberalism, Classical liberalism	Elmar Künneth	53 / 584	Y
			Ruttish Sotirian Democratic Party	Ruttish regionalism, Sotirian Democracy	N/A	0 / 584	N
			Catholic Social Party	Political Catholicism, Sotirian Democracy	Dietrich zu Kolbenheyer	79 / 584	Y
Right			Weranian Fatherland Party	National conservatism, Monarchism	Karl Theophil von Pölten	38 / 584	N

Results

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/−
	Weranic Section of the Workers' International	6,267,582	39.21	238	+14
	Catholic Social Party	2,568,317	16.07	97	+18
	Radical Party	1,457,935	9.12	55	-25
	Rural Federation	1,268,317	7.93	48	-6
	Social Democratic Party of Werania	1,206,849	7.55	45	-11
	Weranian Fatherland Party	1,158,573	7.25	44	+6
	National Liberal Party	1,049,584	6.57	39	−14
	Ruttish Sotirian Democratic Party	475,804	2.98	18	+18
	Others	284,739	1.77	0	-
Invalid/blank votes		248,052	–	–	–
Total		15,985,752	100	584	±0
Registered voters/turnout		20,195,832	79.15	–	–