Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia

The Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia is the state diet of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It convenes in Düsseldorf and currently consists of 187 members of four Parties. The current majority is a coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), supporting the cabinet of Minister-President Jürgen Rüttgers.

Current Composition

After the elections of May 22, 2005, the composition of the Landtag is as follows:

Elections are conducted according to the same form of party list proportional repesentation as in the federal system, but with only one vote used for both calculations - candidate and party list.

On June 15, 2007, Rüdiger Sagel left the Green faction. Since then, he's a factionless member of the Landtag. On October 23, he joined The Left [ [http://www.sagel.info/ - in German] ] .

Presidents of the Landtag

So far, the presidents of the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia have been:
* 1946 Ernst Gnoß, SPD
* 1946 – 1947 Robert Lehr, CDU
* 1947 – 1958 Josef Gockeln, CDU
* 1959 – 1966 Wilhelm Johnen, CDU
* 1966 Josef Hermann Dufhues, CDU
* 1966 – 1970 John van Nes Ziegler, SPD
* 1970 – 1980 Wilhelm Lenz, CDU
* 1980 – 1985 John van Nes Ziegler, SPD
* 1985 – 1990 Karl Josef Denzer, SPD
* 1990 - 1995 Ingeborg Friebe, SPD
* 1995 - 2005 Ulrich Schmidt, SPD
* since 2005 Regina van Dinther, CDU

ee also

* North Rhine-Westphalia state election, 2000
* North Rhine-Westphalia state election, 2005

External links

* [http://www.landtag.nrw.de/portal/WWW/GB_II/II.1/Oeffentlichkeitsarbeit/International/en/en.jsp Official Landtag Webpage]