The politics of Rhineland-Palatinate takes place within a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic, where the Federal Government of Germany exercises sovereign rights with certain powers reserved to the states of Germany including Rhineland-Palatinate. The state has a multi-party system where the two main parties are the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the center-left Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
Every five years, all Germans residing in the State over the age of 18 elect the members of the Rhineland-Palatinate Landtag. This regional parliament or legislature then elects the minister-president and confirms the cabinet members. Rhineland-Palatinate is the only German Bundesland to have a cabinet minister for winegrowing (ministry of economy, traffic, agriculture and winegrowing)
After the 2021 elections, the governing coalition of the SPD, FDP and the Greens (Grüne) was renewed and reelected Malu Dreyer as minister-president. Since then, a new minister-president, Alexander Schweitzer, was elected by the Landtag and began serving in 2024.
A darkened box under a party in any given year denotes that the party had either not yet been founded, or the party had become defunct, by the date of that election.