German federal election, 1994

German federal election, 1994

1990 ← 16 October 1994 (1994-10-16) → 1998

All 672 seats in the Bundestag 337 seats were needed for a majority   First party Second party   Leader Helmut Kohl Rudolf Scharping Party CDU/CSU SPD Leader since 1973 (chancellor since 1982) 1993 Last election 398 seats (with FDP) 247 seats (with Alliance'90/The Greens) Seats won 341 (with FDP) 301 (with Alliance'90/The Greens) Seat change -57 +54 Popular vote 22,775,563 20,564,669 Percentage 48.4% (coalition with FDP) 43.7% (with Alliance'90/The Greens) Swing -6.4% +5.2%

Chancellor before election Helmut Kohl CDU/CSU Elected Chancellor Helmut Kohl CDU/CSU

The 13th German federal election, 1994 was conducted on October 16, 1994, to elect members to the Bundestag (parliament) of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Issues and Campaign

The SPD let its members elect a candidate for Chancellor against Helmut Kohl. First out of three candidates (the others were Gerhard Schröder and Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul) came Rudolf Scharping, Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate.Tension between Scharping and other SPD leaders Oskar Lafontaine and Gerhard Schröder hampered his campaign.

For the first time the Green party seemed to be willing to actually join a government in case that a SPD - Green coalition would have the majority.

Results

Germany

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Germany

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	Party	Party List votes	Vote percentage (change)		Total Seats (change)		Seat percentage
	Christian Democratic Union (CDU)	16,089,960	34.2%	-2.5%	244	-24	36.3%
	Christian Social Union (CSU)	3,427,196	7.3%	+0.2%	50	-1	7.4%
	Free Democratic Party (FDP)	3,258,407	6.9%	-4.1%	47	-32	7.0%
	Social Democratic Party	17,140,354	36.4%	+2.9%	252	+13	37.5%
	Alliance '90/The Greens¹	3,424,315	7.3%	+2.3%	49	+41	7.3%
	Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS)	2,066,176	4.4%	+2.0%	30	+13	4.5%
	All Others	1,698,766	3.6%		0		0.0%
	Totals	47,105,174	100.0%		672	+10	100.0%

¹ Totals for the Greens reflect the merger of the Western and Eastern Green parties.

Seat results -- SPD in red, combined Greens in green, PDS in purple, FDP in yellow, CDU/CSU in black

Post-election

The coalition between the CDU/CSU and the FDP was able to continue in power with Helmut Kohl as chancellor.

The PDS was able to gain four direct seats and was therefore eligible for full caucus status and proportional representation even though it remained below the 5% margin.

Sources

• The Federal Returning Officer
• Psephos