Election of the German Federal President in 1999

Election of the German Federal President in 1999 - second ballot
Candidates				Votes in%
Johannes Rau			51.6
Dagmar Schipanski			42.8
Uta Ranke-Heinemann			4.6

Johannes Rau

Dagmar Schipanski

Uta Ranke-Heinemann

On May 23, 1999, the 11th Federal Assembly elected Johannes Rau , who had been defeated by Roman Herzog five years earlier , as the eighth German Federal President. SPD party leader Oskar Lafontaine had given the promise Rau to force his election to the presidency when he as Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia resign . Despite Lafontaine's resignation in March 1999, Rau remained a candidate for the SPD. He could count on his election, as the SPD and the Greens were only nine votes short of a majority in the Federal Assembly and he also enjoyed sympathy in the FDP.

The CDU / CSU had nominated the Ilmenau professor Dagmar Schipanski , who then became Minister of Science in Thuringia , in view of the supposedly impossible election .

The PDS had nominated Uta Ranke-Heinemann , a daughter of the former Federal President Gustav Heinemann and aunt of Johannes Rau's wife Christina .

Berlin, May 23, 1999 - total number of votes 1338 - absolute majority 670
Ballot	candidate	Number of votes	proportion of	Political party
1st ballot	Johannes Rau	657	49.1%	SPD
	Dagmar Schipanski	588	43.9%	proposed by the CDU
	Uta Ranke-Heinemann	69	5.2%	proposed by the PDS
2nd ballot	Johannes Rau	690	51.6%	SPD
	Dagmar Schipanski	572	42.8%	proposed by the CDU
	Uta Ranke-Heinemann	62	4.6%	proposed by the PDS
With this, Johannes Rau was elected Federal President.

See also

• List of members of the 11th Federal Assembly
• http://www.bundestag.de/parlament/lösungen/bundesammlung/bundesversammlungen_seit_1949

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rau: Hope for a dream job. spiegel.de, May 22, 1999, accessed on September 9, 2015 . 
2. ↑ Federal President Election : Liberal Legends in the Federal Assembly. faz.net, June 30, 2010, accessed September 9, 2015 .