Page "Edmund Stoiber" Paragraph 6

In the run up to the 2002 election the CSU / CDU held a huge lead in the opinion polls and Stoiber famously remarked that "... this election is like a football match where it's the second half and my team is ahead by 2 – 0.

" However, on election day things had changed.

The SPD had mounted a huge comeback, and the CDU / CSU was narrowly defeated ( though both the SPD and CDU / CSU had 38. 5 % of the vote, the SPD was ahead by a small 6, 000 vote margin ).

Gerhard Schröder was re-elected as chancellor by the parliament in a coalition with the Greens.

Many commentators fault Stoiber's reaction to the floods in eastern Germany, in the run-up to the election, as a contributory factor in his party's poor electoral result and defeat.

In addition, Schröder distinguished himself from his opponent by taking an active stance against the upcoming United States-led Iraq War.

His extensive campaigning on this stance was widely seen as swinging the election to the SPD in the weeks running up to the election.