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

coalition government A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...

of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and

Free Democratic Party Free Democratic Party is the name of several political parties around the world. It usually designates a party ideologically based on liberalism. Current parties with that name include: *Free Democratic Party (Germany), a liberal political party in ...

(FDP) led by Minister-President Christian Wulff was re-elected with a reduced majority.

Campaign

Lower Saxony was seen as a stronghold of the Christian Democratic Union and their leader Christian Wulff was seen as likely to easily defeat the Social Democrats. The election in Lower Saxony took place on the same day as the

2008 Hessian state election The 2008 Hessian state election was held on 27 January 2008 to elect the members of the Landtag of Hesse. The incumbent Christian Democratic Union (CDU) government led by Minister-President Roland Koch lost its majority. The result of the electi ...

; Wulff was seen as a more moderate leader than Roland Koch in Hesse 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 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. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Bec ...

. The Social Democrats (SPD) led their

campaign Campaign or The Campaign may refer to: Types of campaigns * Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed * Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme * B ...

with a call for a national minimum wage for all workers. The SPD leader in Lower Saxony, Wolfgang Jüttner, 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 (SPD) , align= 1,035,894 , align= 30.3 , align= 3.1 , align= 48 , align= 15 , align= 31.6 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left ,

(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 (german: Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, ), often simply referred to as the Greens ( ), is a Green politics, green List of political parties in Germany, political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 as the merger of The Greens ...

(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. 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, 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

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

Lower Saxony