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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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