East German general election, 1990

East German general election, 1990

18 March 1990 (1990-03-18)

All 400 seats in the Volkskammer 201 seats were needed for a majority   First party Second party Third party   Leader Lothar de Maizière Ibrahim Böhme Hans Modrow Party CDU SPD PDS Last election 52 seats — 127 seats Seats before 52 — 127 Seats won 163 88 66 Seat change 111 88 61 Popular vote 6,139,450 3,295,440 2,467,818 Percentage 40.8% 21.9% 16.4% Swing — — —

Maps showing the distribution of party votes per district. The map in the bottom right shows the largest party in each district.

Ministerpräsident before election Hans Modrow PDS Resulting Ministerpräsident Lothar de Maizière CDU

Legislative elections were held in East Germany on 18 March 1990. It was the first—and as it turned out, only—free parliamentary election in the GDR, and the first truly free election held in that part of Germany since 1933. A total of 400 deputies were elected to the Volkskammer.

The largest bloc was the opposition Alliance for Germany, led by the East German branch of the Christian Democratic Union and running on a platform of speedy reunification with the West. The runner-up was the East German branch of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which had only been refounded six months earlier. The former Socialist Unity Party of Germany, renamed the Party of Democratic Socialism, ran in a free election for the first time ever and finished in third place.

On 5 April 1990, the new Volkskammer elected the CDU's Sabine Bergmann-Pohl as its president; as the State Council was at the same time dissolved, she became East Germany's interim head of state. Lothar de Maizière (CDU) became prime minister, heading a grand coalition consisting of the CDU, the SDP, the FDP, the German Social Union (DSU) and one non-attached member.^[1]

On 20 September of the same year, the parliament voted to dissolve East Germany and to unify its territory with the Federal Republic of Germany, thus ending the state's 40-year existence. The unification treaty was approved on a 442–47 vote by the Bundestag and by a 299–80 margin in the Volkskammer, and took effect on 3 October.^[2]

Results

References