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2008 Lower Saxony state election

2008 Lower Saxony state election

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All 152 seats in the LandtagofLower Saxony 77 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	3,422,552 (57.0%) 10.0%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Christian Wulff Wolfgang Jüttner Philipp Rösler Party CDU SPD FDP Last election 91 seats, 48.3% 63 seats, 33.4% 15 seats, 8.1% Seats won 68 48 13 Seat change 23 15 2 Popular vote 1,455,687 1,035,894 279,557 Percentage 42.5% 30.3% 8.2% Swing 5.8% 3.1% 0.1%   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Stefan Wenzel Kreszentia Flauger Party Greens Left Last election 14 seats, 7.6% 0 seats, 0.5% Seats won 12 11 Seat change 2 11 Popular vote 273,934 243,106 Percentage 8.0% 7.1% Swing 0.4% 6.6%
Results for the single-member constituencies
Minister-President before election Christian Wulff CDU Elected Minister-President Christian Wulff CDU

The 2008 Lower Saxony state election was held on 27 January 2008 to elect the members of the 16th Landtag of Lower Saxony. The incumbent coalition government of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Free Democratic Party (FDP) led by Minister-President Christian Wulff was re-elected with a reduced majority.^[1]

Campaign[edit]

Lower Saxony was seen as a stronghold of the Christian Democratic Union^[2] and their leader Christian Wulff was seen as likely to easily defeat the Social Democrats.^[3] The election in Lower Saxony took place on the same day as the 2008 Hessian state election; Wulff was seen as a more moderate leader than Roland KochinHesse and consequently more likely to perform better in the election.^[4] The CDU government had held spending down, introduced tuition fees for university students, while supporting the minimum wage.^[5] The Social Democrats (SPD) led their campaign with a call for a national minimum wage for all workers.^[6] The SPD leader in Lower Saxony, Wolfgang Jüttner, was little known to voters and unusually during the campaign made an attack on Wolff for his personal life.^[7]

Parties[edit]

The table below lists parties represented in the 15th Landtag of Lower Saxony.

Opinion polling[edit]

Election result[edit]

Summary of the 27 January 2008 election results for the Landtag of Lower Saxony

Party		Votes	%	+/-	Seats	+/-	Seats %
	Christian Democratic Union (CDU)	1,455,687	42.5	5.8	68	23	44.7
	Social Democratic Party (SPD)	1,035,894	30.3	3.1	48	15	31.6
	Free Democratic Party (FDP)	279,557	8.2	0.1	13	2	8.6
	Alliance 90/The Greens (Grüne)	273,934	8.0	0.4	12	2	7.9
	The Left (Linke)	243,106	7.1	6.6	11	11	7.2
	National Democratic Party (NPD)	52,817	1.5	1.5	0	±0	0
	Others	81,557	2.4		0	±0	0
Total		3,422,552	100.0		152	31
Voter turnout			57.0	10.0

Outcome[edit]

The results saw the Christian Democratic Union easily defeat the Social Democrats, despite suffering a drop in votes and seats.^[8][9] As a result, their leader Christian Wulff was seen as having strengthened his chances of succeeding national CDU leader Angela Merkel.^[10] The 30.3% of the vote that the Social Democrats won was the worst performance by the party in Lower Saxony since the Second World War,^[5] which was described as a 'disaster' for the party.^[11] Turnout in the election was 57%.^[10]

The Left entered the Landtag for the first time with 7.1% of the vote, comfortably exceeding the 5% electoral threshold.^[12] Along with the election in Hesse held on the same day in which The Left also won seats, this was the first time they had achieved representation in any large state in western Germany.^[13]

References[edit]