The Social Democratic Party (SPD) emerged as the largest faction in parliament for the first time since 1972, with its leader Gerhard Schröder becoming chancellor.

The unified Germany had to fight economic and domestic difficulties even as it actively participated in the project of European integration.

Longtime Chancellor Helmut Kohl's government was regarded by many as not having fully implemented the unification after eight years, in view of the mass protests in many eastern German towns due to job losses and social welfare cuts.

The two contenders for the SPD nomination were Oskar Lafontaine, the party's chairman, and Gerhard Schröder, Minister-President of Lower Saxony.

Schröder had announced he would withdraw his bid for the nomination if he received below 42 percent of the popular vote.

"Kohl exploited his familiarity and experience, as well as his status as Europe's longest serving head of government.

With the SPD well ahead in the polls, many of the voters from the CDU had fewer incentives to vote for the FDP.

While the CDU/CSU had offered proposals to reduce benefits in healthcare and pensions, the SPD controlled Bundesrat secured the passage of the bill.

The proposed bill also offered tax cuts that were to benefit the rich, something the SPD opposed.

The SPD swept all single-member constituency seats in the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Saarland, Bremen, Hamburg and (for the first and last time) Schleswig-Holstein.

Kohl lost his own constituency of Ludwigshafen, though he was still re-elected to the Bundestag through the Rhineland-Palatinate CDU party list, and he had not won the seat in the 1983 and 1987 elections.

It has been compared to the defeat of Winston Churchill in 1945 – both were seen as conservative wartime leaders, and in both cases both were turned out of office by the electorate once the war was over.