Election Name: | 1979 West German presidential election |
Country: | Germany |
Type: | presidential |
Ongoing: | no |
Previous Election: | 1974 West German presidential election |
Previous Year: | 1974 |
Next Election: | 1984 West German presidential election |
Next Year: | 1984 |
Election Date: | 23 May 1979 |
Nominee1: | Karl Carstens |
Party1: | Christian Democratic Union (Germany) |
Electoral Vote1: | 528 |
Nominee2: | Annemarie Renger |
Party2: | Social Democratic Party of Germany |
Electoral Vote2: | 431 |
President | |
Before Election: | Walter Scheel |
Before Party: | Free Democratic Party (Germany) |
After Election: | Karl Carstens |
After Party: | Christian Democratic Union (Germany) |
An indirect presidential election (officially the 7th Federal Convention) was held in West Germany on 23 May 1979. Deeming his reelection to be unlikely, incumbent Walter Scheel elected not to seek a second term. The two candidates to replace him were the president of the Bundestag, Karl Carstens, nominated by the Christian Democratic Union, and Carstens' immediate predecessor, Annemarie Renger, nominated by the Social Democratic Party. Carstens won the election on the first ballot.
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 |
CDU/CSU | 531 | Bundestag | 518 |
SPD | 438 | Baden-Württemberg | 75 |
FDP | 66 | Bavaria | 92 |
Independents | 1 | Berlin | 16 |
Total | 1036 | Bremen | 6 |
Hamburg | 14 | ||
Hesse | 46 | ||
Lower Saxony | 63 | ||
North Rhine-Westphalia | 143 | ||
Rhineland-Palatinate | 31 | ||
Saarland | 9 | ||
Schleswig-Holstein | 23 | ||
Total | 1036 |
Candidate | Parties | Votes | % |
---|---|---|---|
Karl Carstens | CDU/CSU | 528 | 51.0 |
Annemarie Renger | SPD | 431 | 41.6 |
align=left colspan=2 | Abstentions | 72 | 6.9 |
align=left colspan=2 | Invalid votes | 1 | 0.1 |
align=left colspan=2 | Not present | 4 | 0.4 |
align=left colspan=2 | Total | 1,036 | 100 |
align=left colspan=4 | Source Bundestag |
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "1979 West German presidential election".
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