Brandenburg state election, 2004

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The Brandenburg state election, 2004, was conducted on September 19, 2004, to elect members to the Landtag (state legislature) of Brandenburg.

1 Issues and Campaign
2 Results
3 Post-election
4 Sources

[edit] Issues and Campaign

Before Bandenburg, the SPD had lost many state elections, what was connected to Gerhard Schröder's Agenda 2010 policy, which was a reaction to the unemployment problems of Germany. The establishing of a lower welfare payment (Arbeitslosengeld 2) for people unemployed for more than a year had driven many voters to the left Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) party in the east, to the new-founded WASG or away from the elections at all. So, the CDU had won more and more states. In Brandenburg, minister-president Matthias Platzeck (SPD) and his partner Jörg Schönbohm (CDU) supported the reforms and the Arbeitslosengeld 2 (also called Hartz IV after an expert who had invented it). Against this campaigned the PDS and the far-right German People's Union (DVU), which had gained seats in the Landtag in 1999 for the first time.

[edit] Results

Party	Party List votes	Vote percentage (change)		Total Seats (change)		Seat percentage
Social Democratic Party (SPD)	372,942	31.9%	-7.4%	33	-4	37.5%
Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS)	326,801	28.0%	+4.7%	29	+7	33.0%
Christian Democratic Union (CDU)	227,062	19.4%	-7.1%	20	-5	22.7%
Deutsche Volksunion (DVU)	71,045	6.1%	+0.8%	6	+1	6.8%
Alliance '90/The Greens	42,087	3.6%	+1.7%	0	+0	0.0%
Free Democratic Party (FDP)	38,890	3.3%	+1.4%	0	+0	0.0%
Family Party of Germany (Familie)	30,843	2.6%	+2.6%	0	+0	0.0%
All Others	59,239	5.1%	+3.3%	0	+0	0.0%
Totals	1,168,909	100.0%		88	-1	100.0%