West German federal election, 1976

German federal election, 1976

1972 ←
3 October 1976 (1976-10-03)
→ 1980

All 496 seats in the Bundestag
249 seats were needed for a majority
  First party Second party
 
Leader Helmut Schmidt Helmut Kohl
Party SPD CDU/CSU
Leader since - (chancellor since 1974) 1973
Last election 230 seats (271 with FDP) 225 seats
Seats won 214 (253 with FDP) 243
Seat change -16 (-18) +18
Popular vote 16,099,019 (19,094,104) 18,394,801
Percentage 42.6% (50.5%) 48.6%
Swing -3.2% (-3.7%) +3.8%

Chancellor before election

Helmut Schmidt
SPD

Elected Chancellor

Helmut Schmidt
SPD

Germany

This article is part of the series:
Politics and government of
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The 8th German federal election, 1976, was conducted on 3 October 1976, to elect members to the Bundestag (parliament) of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Contents

Issues and Campaign

The coalition of SPD and FDP wanted to be re-elected, with the SPD now led by Helmut Schmidt - the party's candidate for Chancellor. CDU and CSU tried to achieve an absolute majority of the votes to make CDU chairman Helmut Kohl Chancellor.

Results

Party Party List votes Vote percentage (change) Total Seats (change) Seat percentage
Social Democratic Party 16,099,019 42.6% -3.2% 214 -16 43.1%
Free Democratic Party (FDP) 2,995,085 7.9% -0.5% 39 -2 7.9%
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) 14,367,302 38.0% +2.8% 190 +13 38.3%
Christian Social Union (CSU) 4,027,499 10.6% +1.0% 53 +5 10.7%
All Others 333,595 0.9%   0   0.0%
Totals 37,822,500 100.0%   496 +0 100.0%

Post-election

The coalition between the SPD and the FDP remained in government, with Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor. Between the "sister parties" of CDU and Bavarian CSU there emerged a critical conflict, as the CSU leader Franz Josef Strauß wanted to break both the united Bundestag group of the parties and the agreement not to compete against each other in any Land. Later, this attack was withdrawn, while Strauß became candidate for chancellor for the 1980 elections.

Sources