Germany 1998 federal election

Final results from ParlGov, read 5 October 2026: Social Democratic Party of Germany won 298 of 669 seats with 40.9% of the vote; 82.2% of registered voters cast a ballot, up 3.2 points on 1994.

Germany
Held Sunday 27 September 1998

Result

335 for a majority

Seats and votes by party

Party	Seats	± seats	%	± points	Votes
Social Democratic Party of Germany	298	+46	40.9	+4.5	20,181,269
Christian Democratic Union of Germany	198	−46	28.4	−5.8	14,004,908
Christian Social Union in Bavaria	47	−3	6.7	−0.6	3,324,480
Alliance 90/The Greens	47	−2	6.7	−0.6	3,301,624
Free Democratic Party	43	−4	6.2	−0.7	3,080,955
PDS / The Left	36	+6	5.1	+0.7	2,515,454
The Republicans	0	0	1.8	−0.1	906,383
German People's Union	0		1.2		601,192

± is the change against the Germany 1994 federal election, party by party.

Votes by party

Social Democratic Party of Germany 20,181,269
Christian Democratic Union of Germany 14,004,908
Christian Social Union in Bavaria 3,324,480
Alliance 90/The Greens 3,301,624
Free Democratic Party 3,080,955
PDS / The Left 2,515,454
The Republicans 906,383
German People's Union 601,192

ParlGov lists parties with at least 1 percent of the vote or 2 seats, so the rows do not add up to the valid votes. How we read it.

Share of the vote

Social Democratic Party of Germany40.9%
Christian Democratic Union of Germany28.4%
Christian Social Union in Bavaria6.7%
Alliance 90/The Greens6.7%
Free Democratic Party6.2%
PDS / The Left5.1%
The Republicans1.8%
German People's Union1.2%

Turnout

82.2% of the 60,762,751 registered voters cast a ballot (49,947,087 ballots), up 3.2 points on 1994. 49,308,512 of them were valid votes. The highest turnout since 1987 in our data. How turnout is counted.

Votes and seats

Social Democratic Party of Germany40.9% of votes44.5% of seats
CDU/CSU35.1% of votes36.6% of seats
Alliance 90/The Greens6.7% of votes7.0% of seats
Free Democratic Party6.2% of votes6.4% of seats
PDS / The Left5.1% of votes5.4% of seats

Each party's share of the vote (outlined) and of the seats (filled)

The Gallagher index of disproportionality is 3.2 (0 when seats follow votes exactly); the effective number of parties is 3.3 by votes and 2.9 by seats; Social Democratic Party of Germany led CDU/CSU by 5.8 points of the vote. How these are computed.

Sources and licence

ParlGov 2024 Release (Döring and Manow), Harvard Dataverse (source). Licence: CC0 1.0 Universal
Wikidata, party colours (P465) (source). Licence: CC0 1.0 Universal

Our text and compilation: CC BY 4.0. How to reuse and cite this page.