South Schleswig Voter Federation
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The South Schleswig Voter Federation (German: Südschleswigscher Wählerverband, Danish: Sydslesvigsk Vælgerforening, Frisian: Söödschlaswiksche Wäälerferbånd) is a regional political party in Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany. It represents the Danish and Frisian minorities.
The SSW declines to identify itself with a left-right-scale, but it models its policies on the Scandinavian countries, which often means favoring a strong welfare state, but, on the other hand, a more liberalist work market policy than the German model. It is represented in the Diet (Landtag) of Schleswig-Holstein and several regional and municipal councils. It has not contested federal elections since 1965.
As a party for the ethnic Danish minority in Southern Schleswig, the SSW is not subject to the general requirement of passing a 5% vote threshold in order to receive proportional seats in the state parliament (Landtag). In the most recent 2005 election, the SSW received 3.6% of the vote and two seats. This was enough for the SSW to hold the balance of power between the national parties of the left and right, and the SSW elected to support a SPD-Green coalition, without entering the coalition itself. This resulted in criticism from the CDU and from German national conservative circles, who asserted that since the SSW were granted a special status, they were obliged to defending only minority interests and that their status should be revoked if the SSW behaved like a 'regular' party. The SSW representatives, however, insisted on the full value of their parliamentary seats and their equal rights as German citizens. One particular point was that the SSW had taken a strong position on educational principles in the state (abolishing ability grouping in secondary schools). The CDU argued that since there were separate Danish language schools, it was unreasonable for the SSW to mingle in the affairs of the public schools. The heated public debate resulted in death threats and hate mail to the SSW, whereas other German politicians took to defending the status of the Danish minority.
As the planned SPD-Greens coalition did not make it into office, a SPD-CDU coalition was created. Currently the SSW is part of the opposition.
