Germany has never had a woman as head of state. That looks set to change. On Monday the leadership of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats endorsed his choice of Ilse Aigner, a 61-year-old Bavarian conservative, as the candidate to succeed President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the centre-left Social Democrats, junior partner in the governing coalition, quickly said they would back her too.
The arithmetic favours her heavily. The Federal Convention, a 1,260-member body made up of every Bundestag deputy and the same number of delegates sent by the 16 state parliaments, meets on 30 January 2027 for the sole purpose of picking the president. A candidate needs an absolute majority of 631 votes in either of the first two rounds, and the coalition parties are reported to control roughly 50 more than that. Steinmeier, now nearing the end of his second five-year stint, is barred from running again.
Aigner is not a household name abroad, but in Bavaria she is a fixture. Trained as an electrical technician, she worked on helicopter components at Eurocopter before entering politics, spent 15 years in the federal parliament, ran the federal agriculture ministry for five years until 2013 and later held several cabinet posts in Munich. Her current job, held since 2018, is speaker of the regional parliament in Munich.
Merz described her as someone who would bring dignity and warmth to the office. Aigner, who teased the chancellor for keeping her in suspense for weeks, pitched herself as a voice of the political centre at a time when extremes are gaining ground, and promised to speak plainly.
The real winner may be Markus Söder, the Bavarian premier and leader of Aigner’s CSU, who floated her name back in spring and pressed Merz until he agreed. The Greens have signalled warmth without yet committing, the far-right AfD intends to put up its own contender, and the Left party complained that the coalition had settled the matter among itself.
