The 2008 Lower Saxony state election was held on 27 January 2008 to elect the members of the 16th

Landtag of Lower Saxony The Lower Saxon Landtag () or the Parliament of Lower Saxony is the state diet of the German state of Lower Saxony. It convenes in Hanover and currently consists of 146 members, consisting of four parties. Since 2022 the majority is a coalition ...

. The incumbent

coalition government A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...

of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Free Democratic Party (FDP) led by Minister-President

Christian Wulff Christian Wilhelm Walter Wulff (; born 1959) is a retired German politician and lawyer who served as President of Germany from 2010 to 2012. A member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he previously ...

was re-elected with a reduced majority.

Campaign

Lower Saxony was seen as a stronghold of the Christian Democratic Union and their leader

was seen as likely to easily defeat the

Social Democrats Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, s ...

. 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 Koch Roland Koch (born 24 March 1958) is a German jurist and former conservative politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He was the 7th Minister President of Hesse from 7 April 1999, immediately becoming the 53rd President of the Bund ...

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

and consequently more likely to perform better in the election. The CDU government had held spending down, introduced

tuition fee Tuition payments, usually known as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in Commonwealth English, are fees charged by education institutions for instruction or other services. Besides public spending (by governments and other public bo ...

s for

university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

students, while supporting the

minimum wage A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. List of countries by minimum wage, Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation b ...

. The Social Democrats (SPD) led their campaign with a call for a national minimum wage for all workers. The SPD leader in Lower Saxony,

Wolfgang Jüttner Wolfgang Jüttner (born 21 March 1948 in Lüdersfeld) is a German politician, representative of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He was his party's candidate for position of chief of state of Lower Saxony in 2008. After his election defeat, he ...

, was little known to voters and unusually during the campaign made an attack on Wolff for his personal life.

Parties

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

Opinion polling

Election result

, - ! colspan="2" , Party ! Votes ! % ! +/- ! Seats ! +/- ! Seats % , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , Christian Democratic Union (CDU) , align= 1,455,687 , align= 42.5 , align= 5.8 , align= 68 , align= 23 , align= 44.7 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

(SPD) , align= 1,035,894 , align= 30.3 , align= 3.1 , align= 48 , align= 15 , align= 31.6 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , Free Democratic Party (FDP) , align= 279,557 , align= 8.2 , align= 0.1 , align= 13 , align= 2 , align= 8.6 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,

Alliance 90/The Greens Alliance 90/The Greens (, ), often simply referred to as Greens (, ), is a Green (politics), green political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 by the merger of the Greens (formed in West Germany in 1980) and Alliance 90 (formed in East Ger ...

(Grüne) , align= 273,934 , align= 8.0 , align= 0.4 , align= 12 , align= 2 , align= 7.9 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , The Left (Linke) , align= 243,106 , align= 7.1 , align= 6.6 , align= 11 , align= 11 , align= 7.2 , - ! colspan=8, , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , National Democratic Party (NPD) , align= 52,817 , align= 1.5 , align= 1.5 , align= 0 , align= ±0 , align= 0 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left , Others , align= 81,557 , align= 2.4 , align= , align= 0 , align= ±0 , align= 0 , - ! align=right colspan=2, Total ! align= 3,422,552 ! align= 100.0 ! align= ! align= 152 ! align= 31 ! align= , - ! align=right colspan=2, Voter turnout ! align= ! align= 57.0 ! align= 10.0 ! align= ! align= ! align=

Outcome

The results saw the Christian Democratic Union easily defeat the Social Democrats, despite suffering a drop in votes and seats. As a result, their leader Christian Wulff was seen as having strengthened his chances of succeeding national CDU leader

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She is the only woman to have held the office. She was Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and Leade ...

. 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 World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, which was described as a 'disaster' for the party. Turnout in the election was 57%. The Left entered the Landtag for the first time with 7.1% of the vote, comfortably exceeding the 5% electoral threshold. 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.

References

{{Lower Saxony state election

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...