West German presidential election, 1979

West German presidential election, 1979

Nominee Karl Carstens Annemarie Renger Party CDU SPD Electoral vote 528 431

President before election Walter Scheel FDP Elected President Karl Carstens CDU

An indirect presidential election 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.

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.

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

Results

References

German presidential elections
Weimar Republic (1919–1933)	1919 1925 1932
East Germany (1949–1960)	1949 1953 1957
Federal Republic of Germany (since 1949)	1949 1954 1959 1964 1969 1974 1979 1984 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2010 2012 2017