Minister President of Lower Saxony the CDU nomination for President in 1979 and Chancellor in 1980, Gerhard Schröder became Chancellor of Germany in 1998, his successor Sigmar Gabriel is the current SPD chairman and Christian Wulff was elected President of Germany in 2010. Examples of Lower Saxony's influence on policy debates in federal politics include Ernst Albrecht's advocacy of financial transfers from other states and Gerhard Schröder's usage of Lower Saxony's "Bundesrat" votes in matters of fiscal and tax policy. Political Party: Minister President of Lower Saxony The Minister President of Lower Saxony (), also referred to as Premier or Prime Minister, is the head
President of Germany people have served as President of the Federal Republic of Germany. Six of them were members of the CDU (Lübke, Carstens, von Weizsäcker, Herzog, Köhler, Wulff), three were members of the SPD (Heinemann, Rau, Steinmeier), two were members of the FDP (Heuss, Scheel) and one was independent (Gauck). Four presidents were ministers in the federal government before entering office (Lübke (Agriculture), Heinemann (Justice), Scheel (Foreign Affairs), Steinmeier (Foreign Affairs)), two of them (Scheel, Steinmeier) having been Vice Chancellor of Germany. Three were head of a state government (von Weizsäcker (West Berlin), Rau (North Rhine-Westphalia), Wulff (Lower Saxony)), Rau having been