State election in Lower Saxony 2003
The election for the 15th Lower Saxony State Parliament took place on February 2, 2003. Elections were made in 100 constituencies. The minimum number of seats to be allocated in the Lower Saxony state parliament was 155. For each overhang mandate , there was an additional compensatory mandate, so that the total number of mandates in parliament is always odd.
Official end result
| State election 2003 | First votes | % | Direct mandates |
Overhang compensation |
Second votes | % | Seats 2003 |
Seats 1998 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CDU | 2,077,689 | 52.24 | 91 | 14 nights | 1,925,055 | 48.32 | 91 | 62 |
| SPD | 1,441,971 | 36.26 | 9 | 10 A | 1.330.156 | 33.39 | 63 | 83 |
| FDP | 176,862 | 4.45 | - | 2 A | 323.107 | 8.11 | 15th | - |
| B'90 / Greens | 234.414 | 5.89 | - | 2 A | 304,532 | 7.64 | 14th | 12 |
| Schill | 19,419 | 0.49 | - | - | 40,342 | 1.01 | - | - |
| PDS | 14,605 | 0.37 | - | - | 21,560 | 0.54 | - | - |
| The Republicans | 1,152 | 0.03 | - | - | 17,043 | 0.43 | - | - |
| GRAY | 589 | 0.02 | - | - | 10,724 | 0.27 | - | - |
| PBC | 2,984 | 0.08 | - | - | 7,819 | 0.20 | - | - |
| ödp | - | - | - | - | 3,671 | 0.09 | - | - |
| BüSo | 1,455 | 0.04 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| FAMILY | 868 | 0.02 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Individual applicants | 5,197 | 0.13 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
|
valid votes |
3,977,205 |
100.00 98.54 |
100 |
28 |
3,984,009 |
100.00 98.71 |
183 |
157 |
| invalid votes | 58,812 | 1.46 | 52.008 | 1.29 | ||||
|
votes cast voter turnout |
4,036,017 |
100.00 67.00 |
4,036,017 |
100.00 67.00 |
||||
| Non-voters | 1,987,619 | 33.00 | 1,987,619 | 33.00 | ||||
| eligible to vote | 6,023,636 | 100.00 | 6,023,636 | 100.00 | ||||
initial situation
In this state election, the SPD sole government under Prime Minister Sigmar Gabriel stood for re-election for the first time. Gabriel had taken over the Prime Minister's office in 1999 from his predecessor Gerhard Glogowski , who in turn only became Prime Minister in October 1998 after his predecessor Gerhard Schröder had been elected Chancellor.
For the CDU, Christian Wulff stood for the third time as the top candidate, who was defeated by Gerhard Schröder in the state elections in 1994 and 1998.
The state elections were overshadowed by aspects of federal politics: Federal Chancellor Schröder, who himself was Prime Minister of Lower Saxony from 1990 to 1998, was re-elected as Federal Chancellor in October 2002.
The start of his second term of office was almost consistently described in the media as suboptimal or unsuccessful, so that a nationwide negative trend developed to the detriment of the SPD.
Result
The SPD lost its absolute majority and, after thirteen years of government responsibility, had to return to the opposition.
Christian Wulff was able to form a black and yellow government and became Minister-President of Lower Saxony on the third attempt.
Sigmar Gabriel became opposition leader .
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Official final result of the state election on February 2, 2003 in Lower Saxony Lower Saxony State Office for Statistics
