West German presidential election, 1989

West German presidential election, 1989

200px Nominee Richard von Weizsäcker Party CDU Electoral vote 881

President before election Richard von Weizsäcker CDU Elected President Richard von Weizsäcker CDU

An indirect presidential election was held in West Germany on 23 May 1989. The only candidate was incumbent Richard von Weizsäcker, who had the support of the four major parties at the time (CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP, and The Greens). It was the first, and to date only time that a presidential candidate ran unopposed.

Composition of the Federal Convention

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	479		Bundestag	519
SPD	419		Baden-Württemberg	77
FDP	71		Bavaria	94
Greens	67		Berlin	16
Republicans	1		Bremen	5
Independent	1		Hamburg	13
Total	1038		Hesse	46
			Lower Saxony	63
			North Rhine-Westphalia	141
			Rhineland-Palatinate	32
			Saarland	9
			Schleswig-Holstein	23
			Total	1038

Source: Eine Dokumentation aus Anlass der Wahl des Bundespräsidenten am 18. März 2012

Results

Candidate	Parties	Votes	%
Richard von Weizsäcker	CDU, CSU, SPD, FDP, The Greens	881	84.9
Against votes		108	10.4
Abstention		30	2.9
Invalid votes		3	0.3
Not present		16	1.5
Total		1,038	100
Source: Bundestag