German federal election, 2002

German federal election, 2002

1998 ← 22 September 2002 (2002-09-22) → 2005

All 603 seats in the Bundestag 302 seats were needed for a majority   First party Second party   Leader Gerhard Schröder Edmund Stoiber Party SPD CDU/CSU Leader since 1999 1999 (CSU only) Last election 298 245 Seats won 251 248 Seat change 47 3 Popular vote 18,484,560 18,475,696 Percentage 38.5% 38.5% Swing 2.4% 3.3%

Chancellor before election Gerhard Schröder SPD Elected Chancellor Gerhard Schröder SPD

Germany

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

Constitution Constitution Human rights Executive Acting President Horst Seehofer Chancellor Angela Merkel Cabinet Legislature Federal Convention (Bundesversammlung) Federal Council (Bundesrat) Federal Diet (Bundestag) Judiciary Judiciary Federal courts Constitutional Court Administrative Court Court of Justice Finance Court Labor Court Social court Divisions States (Länder) Administrative regions (Regierungsbezirke) Districts (Kreise) Collective municipalities Municipalities (Gemeinden) Elections Elections Political parties Foreign policy Foreign relations European Union politics

Other countries · Atlas Politics portal

The 15th German federal election, 2002 was conducted on 22 September 2002, to elect members to the Bundestag (lower house) of Germany.

Issues and campaign

Several issues dominated the campaign, with the opposition CDU/CSU attacking the government's performance on the economy as well as campaigning on family values issues and against taxes (particularly on fuel). The government, on the other hand, was helped by broad support for its opposition to the Iraq War and by Gerhard Schröder's personal popularity relative to the opposition's candidate for Chancellor, CSU leader Edmund Stoiber.

Early in the campaign, Guido Westerwelle, leader of the Free Democrats, declared himself a "Chancellor Candidate," usually a title reserved for the main election leaders of the SDP and CDU/CSU. This was met with general derision.

Results

Although the opposition gained seats, and the result was in doubt for most of the election night, the governing coalition retained a narrow majority. In particular, the SPD was able to partially offset declines in their vote share in the West with an increase in the East, with the PDS falling below both the 5% threshold and the 3-seat threshold, either of which is required to qualify a party for top-up seats. Consequently the PDS held only two directly-elected seats.

	Party	Party List votes	Vote percentage (change)		Total Seats (change)		Seat percentage
	Social Democratic Party (SPD)	18,484,560	38.5%	-2.4%	251	-47	41.6%
	Alliance '90/The Greens	4,108,314	8.6%	+1.9%	55	+8	9.1%
	Christian Democratic Union (CDU)	14,164,183	29.5%	+1.1%	190	-8	31.5%
	Christian Social Union (CSU)	4,311,513	9.0%	+2.2%	58	+11	9.6%
	Free Democratic Party (FDP)	3,537,466	7.4%	+1.1%	47	+4	7.8%
	Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS)	1,915,797	4.0%	-1.1%	2	-34	0.3%
	All Others	1,458,471	3.0%		0		0.0%
	Totals	47,980,304	100.0%		603	-66	100.0%

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

Post-election

The coalition between the SPD and the Greens continued in government with Gerhard Schröder as chancellor.

Further reading

• Pulzer, Peter (April 2003). "The devil they know: The German federal election of 2002". West European Politics 26 (2): 153–164. doi:10.1080/01402380512331341151. 

Sources

• The Federal Returning Officer
• Psephos