Luxembourgian legislative election, 1945

Legislative elections were held in Luxembourg on 21 October 1945. Voters elected all 51 members of the Grand Duchy's unicameral national legislature, the Chamber of Deputies.

It was the first election held after the German occupation during the Second World War. As a result of the war, the political alliances of the interwar period had been ended. In their place were new parties; the Christian Social People's Party, the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party, and the Patriotic and Democratic Group in place of the Party of the Right, Socialist Party, and Radical Liberal Party respectively. It is regarded as a realigning election, as the election established the party political order, with four established parties, that would be maintained until 1974.

Results

The conservatives remained the dominant faction, and the Christian Social People's Party's leader, Pierre Dupong, was invited to head another government. The election was also a success for both liberal and communist candidates, with both the Patriotic and Democratic Group and the Communist Party gaining four more seats than in the last election before the war. [Although the Patriotic and Democratic Group was a new party, they won four more than their ideological predecessors, the Radical Liberals, had in 1937.]

To restore political stability, Grand Duchess Charlotte asked Dupong to create a more broad-based coalition than the preceding Liberation Government. The resulting National Union Government would embrace all four political parties, and also include the solitary independent, guaranteeing the support of the whole Chamber of Deputies. The government remained in place until 1947.

Footnotes