German federal elections, 2005

German federal election, 2005

2002 ← 18 September 2005 (2005-09-18) → 2009

All 598 seats (plus 16 overhangs) in the Bundestag 308 seats were needed for a majority Turnout 77.7% (voting eligible)   First party Second party Third party   Leader Angela Merkel Gerhard Schröder Guido Westerwelle Party CDU/CSU SPD FDP Last election 248 seats 251 seats 47 seats Seats won 226 222 61 Seat change 22 29 14 Popular vote 16,631,049 16,194,665 4,648,144 Percentage 35.2% 34.2% 9.8% Swing 3.3% 4.3% 2.5%   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Lothar Bisky Joschka Fischer Party PDS Grüne Last election 2 seats 55 seats Seats won 54 51 Seat change 52 4 Popular vote 4,118,194 3,838,326 Percentage 8.7% 8.1% Swing 4.7% 0.5%

Party list election results by state: light blue denotes states where CDU/CSU had the plurality of votes, and pink denotes states where the SPD had the plurality of votes

Chancellor before election Gerhard Schröder SPD Resulting Chancellor Angela Merkel CDU/CSU

Gerhard Schröder
SPD

Angela Merkel
CDU/CSU

German federal elections took place on 18 September 2005 to elect the members of the 16th German Bundestag, the federal parliament of Germany. They became necessary after a motion of confidence in Chancellor Gerhard Schröder failed on 1 July. Following the defeat of Schröder's Social Democratic Party (SPD) in a state election, Schröder asked his supporters to abstain in the Bundestag motion in order that it fail and thus trigger an early federal election.

The opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union (CSU), started the federal election campaign with a 21% lead over the SPD in opinion polls. Many commentators expected the Christian Democrats to win a clear electoral victory and that CDU leader Angela Merkel would become Chancellor, forming a government with the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and displacing the governing SPD-Green coalition. However, the CDU/CSU significantly lost momentum during the campaign and ultimately won only 1% more votes and four more seats than the SPD.

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