Politics of Germany
The next election for the Bundestag was September 22, 2002. Gerhard Schröder led the coalition of SPD and Greens to an 11-seat victory over the CDU/CSU headed by Edmund Stoiber (CSU). Two factors are generally cited that enabled Schröder to win the elections despite poor approval ratings a few months before: good handling of the 2002 European floods and firm opposition to the USA's 2003 invasion of Iraq.