Federal elections were held in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

on 22 September 2002 to elect the members of the 15th

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Common ...

. Incumbent Chancellor

Gerhard Schröder Gerhard Fritz Kurt "Gerd" Schröder (; born 7 April 1944) is a German lobbyist and former politician, who served as the chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. From 1999 to 2004, he was also the Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germa ...

centre-left Centre-left politics lean to the left on the left–right political spectrum but are closer to the centre than other left-wing politics. Those on the centre-left believe in working within the established systems to improve social justice. The ...

"red-green" governing coalition retained a narrow majority, and the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Fo ...

(SPD) retained their status as the largest party in the Bundestag by three seats.

Issues and campaign

Several issues dominated the campaign, with the opposition

CDU/CSU CDU/CSU, unofficially the Union parties (german: Unionsparteien, ) or the Union, is a centre-right Christian-democratic political alliance of two political parties in Germany: the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Christian Soc ...

attacking the government's performance on the economy which fell back into recession due to the

Telecoms crash The Telecoms crash was a stock market crash that occurred in 2001, after the bursting of the dot-com bubble. It was called "the biggest and fastest rise and fall in business history". Causes Partially a result of greed and excessive optimism, espe ...

and the

introduction of the euro Introduction, The Introduction, Intro, or The Intro may refer to: General use * Introduction (music), an opening section of a piece of music * Introduction (writing), a beginning section to a book, article or essay which states its purpose and g ...

, as well as campaigning on family values and against taxes (particularly on fuel). In the run up to the election, the CSU/CDU held a huge lead in the opinion polls and Christian Social Union (CSU) leader

Edmund Stoiber Edmund Rüdiger Stoiber (born 28 September 1941) is a German politician who served as the 16th Minister President of the state of Bavaria between 1993 and 2007 and chairman of the Christian Social Union (CSU) between 1999 and 2007. In 2002, he r ...

famously remarked that "...this election is like a football match where it's the second half and my team is ahead by 2–0." However, event soon overtook Stoiber and the CDU/CSU campaign. The SPD and the Greens were helped by broad support for its opposition to an

invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...

, continued media attention on the CDU funding scandal and by

's personal popularity relative to the opposition's candidate for chancellor, Stoiber. The SPD was also boosted by Schröder's swift response to the August floods in eastern Germany, as compared to Stoiber, who was on vacation and responded late to the events. With

Guido Westerwelle Guido Westerwelle (; 27 December 1961 – 18 March 2016) was a German politician who served as Foreign Minister in the second cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel and Vice-Chancellor of Germany from 2009 to 2011, being the first openly gay person ...

, leader of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), the FDP presented a chancellor candidate for the first time, usually a title reserved for the main election leaders of the SPD and CDU/CSU. This was met with general derision and Westerwelle was excluded from the chancellor television debate, the first one, against which he unsuccessfully sued.

Opinion polling

Results

Although most opposition parties 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.

Results by state

Second vote ( ''Zweitstimme'', or votes for party list)

Constituency seats

List seats

Post-election

The coalition between the SPD and the Greens continued in government, with Schröder as chancellor. However, due to the slim majority in the Bundestag, the governing coalition was not stable.

Notes

References

Sources

The Federal Returning Officer

Psephos

External links

{{German Chancellor Candidate Federal elections in Germany 2002 elections in Germany September 2002 events in Europe