Minister-President of Hanover

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Minister-President of Hanover
German: Ministerpräsident von Hannover
Flag of Hanover 1837-1866.svg
Flag of Hanover
2021-12-07 Unterzeichnung des Koalitionsvertrages der 20. Wahlperiode des Bundestages by Sandro Halank–076 (cropped).jpg
Incumbent
Anna-Lena Ungerer
since 20 November 2021
Hanoverian Government
Hanoverian Cabinet
Hanoverian Parliament
StyleMinister-President
(informal)
The Right Honourable
(UK and Commonwealth)
Her Excellency
(international)
Member ofHanoverian Parliament
Hanoverian Cabinet
Privy Council
British-Irish Council
British-German Council
Joint Ministerial Committee
Reports toHanoverian Parliament
ResidenceState Chancellery
SeatKing Frederick City
NominatorHanoverian Parliament
AppointerThe monarch
Term lengthNone
The minister-president is nominated by Parliament following an election or resignation
Formation20 November 1924
(98 years ago)
First holderAnton Weintraub
DeputyDeputy Minister-President of Hanover
Salary£159,179 annually
(including £67,637 MHP salary)

The minister-president of Hanover (German: Ministerpräsident von Hannover) is the leader of the Hanoverian Government and the keeper of the Great Seal of Hanover. The minister-president chairs the Hanoverian Government and is also primarily responsible for the formulation, development, and presentation of Hanoverian Government policy. Additional functions of the minister-president include promoting and representing Hanover in an official capacity at home and abroad.

The minister-president is nominated by the Hanoverian Parliament by fellow MHPs and is afterward formally appointed to the position by the monarch. In turn, members of the Hanoverian Cabinet and junior ministers of the Hanoverian Government, as well as the Hanoverian law officers, are all appointed by the minister-president. As head of the Hanoverian Government, the minister-president is directly accountable to the Hanoverian Parliament for their actions and the actions of the wider government.

Since the office's creation, the position has always been traditionally held by the leader of the Hanoverian Union Party, currently Anna-Lena Ungerer who assumed office on 20 November 2021, becoming the most recent in the long, unbroken line of HUP party leaders to successively hold the office, owing to the party's longtime dominant position in Hanoverian politics. Most notably, Ungerer is the second woman in Hanoverian history to hold the office after Kerstin Tilgner, who was minister-president from 1974 to 1989.

History

Prior to the formal incorporation of Hanover into the United Kingdom in 1924, the kingdom's administration was always led by a member of the Hanoverian royal family, usually a junior one, who in such capacity, serves as the kingdom's viceroy on behalf of the monarch who the viceroy is ultimately subordinate to. As a result, the position of viceroy was not an elected position but rather an appointed one in which matters relating to the appointment of a candidate to the position are strictly those of the monarch who is empowered to appoint a new viceroy each time as he or she wishes.

However, by the early 20th century, growing democratic sentiments, coupled with demands to modernise the kingdom's administration, eventually brought an end to this tradition, when the position of viceroy, in line with Hanover's incorporation into the United Kingdom, was replaced by a minister-president who, unlike a viceroy, is an elected position and by convention always comes from the largest party in the Hanoverian parliament. Soon enough, on 20 November 1924, Anton Weintraub, founder and leader of the Hanoverian Union Party, was elected minister-president in the country's first-ever state elections since its incorporation into the United Kingdom.

Since then, due to the Hanoverian Union Party's firmly entrenched position as the single-most dominant political party in the country, the office of minister-president has always been held by the leader of the HUP. As of current, there have been nine minister-presidents in the country's history, two of which are women, namely Kerstin Tilgner, the fifth minister-president of Hanover from 1974 to 1989 and Anna-Lena Ungerer, the ninth and current minister-president of Hanover since 2021. Meanwhile, Hanover's first minister-president Anton Weintraub is also its longest-lived, having lived to the age of 105.

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