1990 German federal election

1990 German federal election

2 December 1990 (1990-12-02)
All 662 seats in the Bundestag 332 seats needed for a majority
Registered	60,436,560 33.3%
Turnout	46,995,915 (77.8%) 6.5%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Helmut Kohl Oskar Lafontaine Otto Graf Lambsdorff Party CDU/CSU SPD FDP Leader since 12 June 1973 20 March 1990 9 October 1988 Leader's seat Ludwigshafen Saarbrücken North Rhine-Westphalia Last election 234 seats, 44.2% 193 seats, 37.0% 48 seats, 9.1% Seats before 305 226 57 Seats won 319 239 79 Seat change 14 13 22 Popular vote 20,358,096 15,545,366 5,123,233 Percentage 43.8% 33.5% 11.0% Swing 0.4% 3.5% 1.9%   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Petra Kelly Gregor Gysi Party Greens PDS Leader since 18 December 1989 Leader's seat Bavaria (not elected) Berlin-Hellersdorf – Marzahn Last election 44 seats, 8.3% Did not exist Seats before 48 24 Seats won 8 17 Seat change 40 7 Popular vote 2,347,407 1,129,578 Percentage 5.0% 2.4% Swing 3.3% New party
Results by state for the second votes. Light blue denotes states where the CDU/CSU won a plurality of votes; darker blue denotes states where CDU/CSU won an absolute majority of votes; pink denotes states where the SPD won a plurality of votes; red denotes where the SPD won an absolute majority of votes.
Chancellor before election Helmut Kohl CDU/CSU Elected Chancellor Helmut Kohl CDU/CSU

Federal elections were held in Germany on 2 December 1990 to elect the members of the 12th Bundestag. This was the first all-German election since the Nazi show election in April 1938, the first multi-party all-German election since that of March 1933, which was held after the Nazi seizure of power and was subject to widespread suppression, and the first free and fair all-German election since November 1932. The result was a comprehensive victory for the governing coalition of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union and the Free Democratic Party, which was reelected to a third term.

Issues and campaign

This was the first election conducted after German reunification which took place on 3 October. Almost 150 seats had been added to represent the newly re-established eastern states of Germany without reducing the number of Western members. The euphoria following the reunification gave the ruling CDU/CSU–FDP coalition a dramatic advantage in both Western and Eastern Germany throughout the campaign.

This was the one and only election for which the 5% threshold was not applied nationwide, but separately for East Germany (including East Berlin) and West Germany (including West Berlin). As a result, while the Western The Greens failed to gain representation, an ideologically similar party from the East, Alliance 90, did. They merged to form Alliance 90/The Greens in 1993.

Results

All change figures are relative to the pre-existing West German Bundestag.

↓

319	79	239	17	8
CDU/CSU	FDP	SPD	PDS

Popular Vote CDU/CSU   43.82% SPD   33.46% FDP   11.03% B'90/GRÜNE   5.05% PDS   2.43% REP   2.13% Other   2.08%

Bundestag seats CDU/CSU   48.19% SPD   36.10% FDP   11.93% PDS   2.57% B'90/GRÜNE   1.21%

Results by state

State	Union	SPD	FDP	Grüne	PDS	Others
	style="background:Template:CDU/CSU/meta/color;"|	style="background:Template:Social Democratic Party of Germany/meta/color;"|	style="background:Template:Free Democratic Party (Germany)/meta/color;"|	style="background:Template:Alliance 90/The Greens/meta/color;"|	style="background:Template:The Left (Germany)/meta/color;"|
Baden-Württemberg	46.5	29.1	12.3	5.7	0.3	6.1
Bavaria	51.9	26.7	8.7	4.6	0.2	7.9
Berlin	39.4	30.6	9.1	7.2	9.7	4.0
Brandenburg	36.3	32.9	9.7	6.6	11.0	3.5
Bremen	30.9	42.5	12.8	8.3	1.1	4.4
Hamburg	36.6	41.0	12.0	5.8	1.1	3.5
Hesse	41.3	38.0	10.9	5.6	0.4	3.8
Lower Saxony	44.3	38.4	10.3	4.5	0.3	2.2
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern	41.2	26.5	9.1	5.9	14.2	3.1
North Rhine-Westphalia	40.5	41.1	11.0	4.3	0.3	2.8
Rhineland-Palatinate	45.6	36.1	10.4	4.0	0.2	3.7
Saarland	38.1	51.2	6.0	2.3	0.2	2.2
Saxony	49.5	18.2	12.4	5.9	9.0	5.0
Saxony-Anhalt	38.6	24.7	19.7	5.3	9.4	2.3
Schleswig-Holstein	43.5	38.5	11.4	4.0	0.3	2.3
Thuringia	45.2	21.9	14.6	6.1	8.3	3.9
Old states (West)	44.3	35.7	10.6	4.8	0.3	4.3
New states (East)	41.8	24.3	12.9	6.2	11.1	3.7

Post-election

The governing CDU/CSU-FDP coalition was returned to office with a landslide majority, and Helmut Kohl remained chancellor. The CDU did exceptionally well in the former East Germany, which had been the heartland of the SPD before the Nazi era.

Winners by Single-member constituency – SPD in red, PDS in purple, FDP in yellow, CDU/CSU in black

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

Sources

• The Federal Returning Officer
• Psephos