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Andrea Ypsilanti | |
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| Born | Andrea Dill (1957-04-08)8 April 1957 (age 68) |
| Political party | Social Democratic Party |
| Alma mater | University of Frankfurt |
Andrea Ypsilanti (néeDill; born 8 April 1957) is a German politician.
Ypsilanti was a member of theHessianLandtag (parliament) and served as chairperson of theSocial Democratic Party (SPD) of Hesse from March 2003 to January 2009.
In theHesse state elections of 2008, held on 27 January 2008, she was the SPD's candidate for the position ofminister-president (Ministerpräsident), orprime minister, of Hesse. In that election, her party received 36.7 per cent of the vote - only 0.1 per cent less than theChristian Democratic Union (CDU) of incumbentRoland Koch, which had ruled the state since 1999. Thus, the Hesse SPD came in second, but gained the same number of representatives in theLandtag as the CDU. Overall, the 2008 election led to a deadlock in the state parliament, because neither the CDU and theFree Democratic Party (FDP), nor the SPD and theGreen Party, had enough seats to constitute a parliamentary majority, thus enabling the formation of a coalition government. The reason for this was that theDie Linke had entered the Landtag for the first time ever with 5.3% of the vote. Hessian constitution allows for continued operation of the previous government in case of ahung parliament.
Before the 2008 election, Ypsilanti had promised on many occasions to never work together with theLeft Party. However, after a "grand coalition" with the CDU was ruled out, Ypsilanti ultimately decided to cooperate with the Left Party in order to be elected prime minister and overcome the deadlock. The first attempt was abandoned afterDagmar Metzger, one of her own party's representatives in theLandtag, declared she would not vote for Ypsilanti because of the latter's cooperation with the Left Party.
A second attempt to elect Ypsilanti prime minister was scheduled for 4 November 2008. However, one day prior to the election, three other SPD representatives -Carmen Everts,Silke Tesch, andJürgen Walter (vice chairman of the Hesse SPD) - also announced that they would vote against her, making it impossible for Ypsilanti to gain the needed majority. This, in turn, forced the dissolution of theLandtag and the scheduling of new elections for 18 January 2009. On 8 November 2008, Ypsilanti withdrew her candidacy in favor ofThorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, who became the SPD's new lead candidate(Spitzenkandidat).
Preliminary election results on 18 January 2009 indicated that the CDU and the (FDP) together won 64 seats in the parliament - five more than the 59 required - and thus could begin forming a governing coalition. At the same time the SPD lost 13 per cent of the vote compared to the previous election, falling to an historic low in Hesse and one of the worst showings by the party in a German state election. After the preliminary results were published, Ypsilanti announced her resignation as party chairperson.
In February 2010, Ypsilanti, together withSven Giegold of theGreen Party,Katja Kipping of theLeft Party, and others, founded the Institut Solidarische Moderne, aleft-wingthink tank opposed toneoliberalism.[1]
Ypsilanti grew up inRüsselsheim as the daughter of a worker at the localOpel factory. After finishing school she worked as asecretary and then as aflight attendant forLufthansa. From 1986 until 1992 she studiedsociology,political science and education inFrankfurt, graduating with a master's in sociology. She wrote her thesis on the theme "Women and Power". After her divorce in 1992 she kept her Greek husband's last nameYpsilanti. She lives with her partner in Frankfurt.
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