Kohl served as chairman until the party's electoral defeat in 1998, when he was succeeded by Wolfgang Schäuble. Schäuble resigned in early 2000 as a result of a party financing scandal and was replaced by Angela Merkel, who remained the leader of the CDU until 2018. In the 1998 federal election the CDU polled 28.4% and the CSU 6.7% of the national vote, the lowest result for those parties since 1949; a red–green coalition under the leadership of Gerhard Schröder took power until 2005. In the 2002 federal election, the CDU and CSU polled slightly higher (29.5% and 9.0%, respectively), but still lacked the majority needed for a CDU–FDP coalition government.