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An indirect presidential election (officially the 11th Federal Convention) saw the former Social democrat Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia defeat Christian democrat Dagmar Schipanski and the nonpartisan academic Uta Ranke-Heinemann, who had been endorsed by the Party of Democratic Socialism.
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 |
| SPD | 565 | Bundestag | 669 |
| CDU/CSU | 547 | Baden-Württemberg | 82 |
| Greens | 96 | Bavaria | 98 |
| PDS | 65 | Berlin | 27 |
| FDP | 56 | Brandenburg | 23 |
| Republicans | 7 | Bremen | 5 |
| DVU | 2 | Hamburg | 13 |
| Total | 1338 | Hesse | 47 |
| Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | 16 | ||
| North Rhine-Westphalia | 143 | ||
| Rhineland-Palatinate | 33 | ||
| Saarland | 9 | ||
| Saxony | 39 | ||
| Saxony-Anhalt | 24 | ||
| Schleswig-Holstein | 23 | ||
| Thuringia | 22 | ||
| Total | 1338 | ||
Source: Eine Dokumentation aus Anlass der Wahl des Bundespräsidenten am 18. März 2012
| Candidate | Nominating Party | Round One | Round Two | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | Percentage | Votes | Percentage | |||
| Johannes Rau | SPD, Greens | 657 | 49.1 | 690 | 51.6 | |
| Dagmar Schipanski | CDU/CSU | 588 | 43.9 | 572 | 42.8 | |
| Uta Ranke-Heinemann | Independent (endorsed by PDS) | 69 | 5.2 | 62 | 4.6 | |
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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.
An indirect presidential election was held in West Germany on 23 May 1974. Though not term limited, incumbent Gustav Heinemann chose not to seek a second term. The government parties nominated Vice-Chancellor Walter Scheel; the Christian Democratic Union nominated Richard von Weizsäcker. Scheel won the election by 32 votes on the first ballot. He served as president until 1979. Weizsäcker would later serve as president from 1984 to 1994.
An indirect presidential election was held in West Germany on 5 March 1969. The incumbent President, Heinrich Lübke had served two terms and was therefore ineligible for a third. The Christian Democratic Union nominated defense minister Gerhard Schröder. Schröder was a controversial choice, even within his own party, since he had been a member of the NSDAP and the SA under Hitler. Other potential candidates included Helmut Kohl and Richard von Weizsäcker, relatively unknown names at the time, who would go on to serve as Chancellor and President respectively. Justice Minister Gustav Heinemann was nominated by the Social Democratic Party and supported by the opposition Free Democratic Party. With neither candidate able to win an absolute majority, Heinemann won the election on the third ballot by only 6 votes.
An indirect presidential election was held in West Germany on 1 July 1964. President Heinrich Lübke was renominated by the Christian Democratic Union. The Free Democratic Party nominated justice minister Ewald Bucher. The Social Democratic Party was divided. The official party line was that they supported President Lübke's re-election. Some have speculated this was a first move towards the grand-coalition that brought Kurt Kiesinger to power two years later. However, the high number of abstentions seems to indicate that not all members of the SPD caucus agreed with this move, as does the fact that Ewald Bucher received at least 19 votes from outside his own party.
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