The Union has found its candidate for the highest office in the land, even if nobody has said so officially: Ilse Aigner (CSU), 61, president of the Bavarian state parliament, is set to succeed Frank-Walter Steinmeier as Federal President. According to dpa, Chancellor Friedrich Merz will put her to the CDU’s leadership bodies in Berlin on Sunday and Monday, with an official presentation expected on Monday. A member of the CDU leadership told ZDFheute that anyone but Aigner was “unimaginable”. (As of 7 November, 9 pm)
The election takes place on 30 January 2027 in the Bundestag chamber. The Federal Convention has 1,260 members: the 630 members of the Bundestag and an equal number of delegates chosen by the state parliaments. Under Article 54 of the Basic Law, the first two rounds require an absolute majority of all members, or 631 votes; in the third, a simple majority is enough. dpa reports that the CDU/CSU and SPD together hold a lead of roughly 50 votes. SPD leader Lars Klingbeil said he would back the nomination, and Green parliamentary leader Britta Haßelmann praised Aigner’s approachable manner. AfD leader Tino Chrupalla rejects her, arguing a head of state must unite and that a party card makes that harder. Left parliamentary leader Heidi Reichinnek had called for a non-partisan candidate.
“How can you bungle a process this badly?”
That is Haßelmann’s question, and it hits the sore spot. There is little criticism of Aigner herself, and plenty of the road that led to her. Markus Söder floated her name back in April without consulting the CDU; Merz stayed silent for months while Boris Rhein, Julia Klöckner, Karin Prien and Udo Di Fabio were also mentioned. In Hagen the chancellor said the CDU and CSU had agreed a procedure and that he was sticking to it. Omid Nouripour (Greens) told the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger that Merz had once again lost control of a personnel process. CDU foreign-policy figure Roderich Kiesewetter said on “Markus Lanz” that it was “bitter” to “dither and delay” over such a top post.
Aigner brings a profile that travels across party lines: born in 1964 in the Rosenheim district, a trained radio and television technician, in the Bavarian parliament since 1994 and the Bundestag since 1998, federal consumer protection minister from 2008 to 2013, president of the Bavarian parliament since 2018. She would be the first woman and the first CSU politician to hold the office. She calls herself a “bridge-builder”.
What an election would set in motion
For Bavaria there is a practical consequence: under Article 55 of the Basic Law, the Federal President may not belong to any parliament. Aigner would have to give up her seat and the speaker’s chair, and the Landtag in Munich would choose a successor. In federal politics, Berlin finds it hard to imagine the CSU holding both the presidency and the chancellorship, which is likely to dampen talk of a chancellor bid by Söder or Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt.
Our assessment: election in the first or second round is very likely as long as the SPD and Greens stay united; the residual risk is the secret ballot, though for a candidate with such broad backing it is small. Politically the process hurts Merz more than the nominee: the coalition does not lose its majority over the appointment, but it loses authority. Whether Aigner stays the choice will be clear after the CDU bodies meet this weekend.
Sources: ZDFheute, dpa/ariva, Bundestag, Basic Law, Art. 54
