In the
2005 state election, the SSW received 3.6% (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 chose to support a coalition of the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and
The Greens, without joining the coalition itself. A coalition of the SPD, Greens and SSW was concluded in June 2012, and the former parliamentary leader,
Anke Spoorendonk, was appointed Minister for Culture, Justice and European Affairs. This was the first time in German history that a minority party had participated in a state government. The new coalition government had plenty of nicknames, for instance "Dänen-Ampel" ("Dane-
traffic light"), "Schleswig-Holstein-Ampel", "rot-grün-blaue Koalition" or "rød-grøn-blå koalition" (red–green–blue alliance), "Küstenkoalition" (Coastal alliance) and "Nord-Ampel" (North traffic light). In the
2017 state election, the SSW backed to 3.3% of the votes, but retained three seats in the Landtag. However, since the government coalition parties lost their Landtag majority, a new government was formed without the SSW, which again joined the opposition. Exempt from the threshold of 5%, it won a seat in the
2021 German federal election with 0.1% of the vote nationwide, its first federal seat since the inaugural
1949 West German federal election. Though unlikely to change the balance of power in any way,
Stefan Seidler sits as its
Member of the German Bundestag. In the
2022 state election, the SSW again ran with
Lars Harms as its top candidate. With 5.7%, the SSW achieved more than five percent of the vote for the first time since the state election in 1950. At the end of 2024, Lars Harms resigned from his state parliament mandate and retired from politics. Michael Schunck took his place in the state parliament.
Christian Dirschauer took over the parliamentary group chairmanship in the state parliament. For the
2025 federal election, the SSW aims to defend its seat in the Bundestag and hopes to gain a second seat. The party expects to need around 40,000 votes for the first seat and a total of 110,000 votes (6% of the second votes in Schleswig-Holstein) for the second seat. In the
2025 German federal election they held their seat from the previous election, putting them in sixth place in terms of seats in the
Bundestag. ==SSWUngdom==