 The SPD and Green parties received respectively 40.9% and 6.7% of the national vote.Candidates from receiving less than 5% of the national vote are excluded from the Bundestag, so that the combined 47.6% of the national vote translated into 345 of the 669 seats in the Bundestag, creating a majority for a new SPD/Green coalition government under Gerhard Schröder.On 27 October 1998 Rolf Schwanitz was appointed Minister of State in Schröder's Chancellery.