State election in Lower Saxony 1998
The election to the 14th Lower Saxony State Parliament took place on March 1, 1998. Elections were made in 100 constituencies. The minimum number of seats to be awarded in the Lower Saxony state parliament was 155. For each overhang mandate that came about, a compensation mandate was added, so that the total number of mandates in parliament is always odd.
initial situation
In the 1994 state elections, the SPD, under the leadership of Prime Minister Gerhard Schröder, achieved a wafer-thin absolute majority of the seats, while the CDU, under its top candidate Christian Wulff , suffered significant losses.
The SPD started with the declared aim of defending its absolute majority.
Federal political aspects
The state elections moved very much into the focus of media and public interest: Prime Minister Gerhard Schröder, along with SPD chairman Oskar Lafontaine, was one of the two main contenders for the SPD candidate for chancellor in the federal elections on September 27, 1998 .
Schröder himself had announced that he would forego his federal political ambitions if the SPD should lose more than two percentage points.
Since Gerhard Schröder appeared to be the more promising candidate in the Bundestag election campaign than Oskar Lafontaine, according to most of the nationwide surveys, Chancellor Helmut Kohl was unusually committed to the state election campaign in order to prevent Schröder from winning.
Result
The SPD gained 3.6 percentage points and was thus able to expand its absolute majority. Christian Wulff failed in his second attempt to become Prime Minister. The FDP failed despite winning votes with a result of 4.9% very narrowly at the five percent hurdle.
Schröder remained Prime Minister and formed a new cabinet . On October 27, 1998, Schröder became Federal Chancellor; his successor as prime minister was Gerhard Glogowski .
Eligible voters: 5,929,342
Voters: 4,376,643 (turnout: 73.81%)
Valid first votes: 4,296,592
Valid second votes: 4,314,932
| Political party | First votes | Second votes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First votes |
Share in% |
Direct MAN date |
Second votes |
Share in% |
Seats | |
| SPD | 2,090,805 | 48.66 | 83 | 2,068,477 | 47.94 | 83 |
| CDU | 1,647,814 | 38.35 | 17th | 1,549,227 | 35.90 | 62 |
| GREEN | 310.204 | 7.22 | 304.193 | 7.05 | 12 | |
| FDP | 143,702 | 3.34 | 209.610 | 4.86 | ||
| REP | 41,557 | 0.97 | 118.975 | 2.76 | ||
| Instead of party | 29,727 | 0.69 | 30,224 | 0.70 | ||
| DKP | 1,331 | 0.03 | 8,597 | 0.20 | ||
| PBC | 2,724 | 0.06 | 7,984 | 0.19 | ||
| The women | 6,775 | 0.16 | ||||
| DP | 4,087 | 0.10 | 6.140 | 0.14 | ||
| ÖDP | 2,587 | 0.06 | 4,730 | 0.11 | ||
| PDS | 6,504 | 0.15 | ||||
| SFP | 602 | 0.01 | ||||
| Individual applicants | 14,948 | 0.35 | ||||
| Total | 4,296,592 | 100 | 4,314,932 | 157 | ||
The SPD received an overhang mandate, the CDU a compensatory mandate.
Federal political consequences
At 6:30 p.m., SPD federal manager Franz Müntefering announced at the SPD federal headquarters that with this result, Schröder would be the SPD's next candidate for chancellor.
Party leader Lafontaine confirmed this to the journalists waiting in front of his private house at around 8 p.m.
In the federal election in September 1998 , Schröder actually managed to replace Kohl as Federal Chancellor. He entered the first red-green coalition at the federal level (see Schröder I cabinet ).
