1999 German presidential election

An indirect presidential election (officially the 11th Federal Convention) saw the former Social democrat minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia defeat Christian democrat Dagmar Schipanski and the nonpartisan academic Uta Ranke-Heinemann, who had been endorsed by the Party of Democratic Socialism.

1999 German presidential election

← 1994 23 May 1999 2004 →
 
Nominee Johannes Rau Dagmar Schipanski Uta Ranke-Heinemann
Party SPD CDU Independent
Electoral vote 657 (1st round)
690 (2nd round)
588 (1st round)
572 (2nd round)
69 (1st round)
62 (2nd round)

President before election

Roman Herzog
CDU

Elected President

Johannes Rau
SPD

Composition of the Federal Convention

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The president is elected by the Federal Convention consisting of all the members of the Bundestag and an equal number of delegates representing the states. These are divided proportionally by population to each state, and each state's delegation is divided among the political parties represented in its parliament so as to reflect the partisan proportions in the parliament.

By party By state
Party Members State Members
SPD 565 Bundestag 669
CDU/CSU 547 Baden-Württemberg 82
Greens 96 Bavaria 98
PDS 65 Berlin 27
FDP 56 Brandenburg 23
Republicans 7 Bremen 5
DVU 2 Hamburg 13
Total 1338 Hesse 47
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 16
North Rhine-Westphalia 143
Rhineland-Palatinate 33
Saarland 9
Saxony 39
Saxony-Anhalt 24
Schleswig-Holstein 23
Thuringia 22
Total 1338

Source: Eine Dokumentation aus Anlass der Wahl des Bundespräsidenten am 18. März 2012

Results

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Candidate Nominating party Round One Round Two
Votes Percentage Votes Percentage
Johannes Rau SPD, Greens 657 49.1 690 51.6
Dagmar Schipanski CDU/CSU 588 43.9 572 42.8
Uta Ranke-Heinemann Independent (endorsed by PDS) 69 5.2 62 4.6