Christian Socialist Ilse Aigner will aspire to be the first female president of Germany

Bavarian politician Ilse Aigner will aspire to be the first woman to hold the presidency of Germany. Aigner (Feldkirchen-Westerham, 66 years old), will be officially presented on Monday as a candidate for head of state by her party, the Christian Socials of the CSU, and the Christian Democrats of the CDU. This is what the media Der Spiegel and Süddeutsche Zeitung have reported. The leadership of the Social Democrats of the SPD has confirmed to the DPA agency that they will vote in favor of Aigner, which guarantees enough votes to put her in office.

The presidency of the Federal Republic of Germany is a symbolic and representative position of the country, without executive powers. The current president is the social democrat Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is leaving office after having held it for the maximum number of terms, two, and a total of ten years.

The person holding the German presidency must be someone who achieves a broad consensus before the vote in the Federal Assembly. The only function of this body is the election of the head of state every five years; It is made up of federal deputies and representatives of the federal states of Germany.

Parties can present their candidates in the Federal Assembly. These must obtain an absolute majority in the first and second votes, or a simple majority in the third. The president of the SPD, Lars Klingbeil, has reported that the Social Democrats will support Aigner. Between the CDU, the CSU and the SPD they are guaranteed an absolute majority. The plenary session of the Federal Assembly that elects the president will be held in January 2027.

Klingbeil has asked to wait for the official presentation of the candidacy, but has indicated that Aigner seems like a suitable choice for the position: "On behalf of the SPD, I can only say that we would satisfactorily accept the proposal and support it." The SPD is part of the government coalition with the CDU of Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the CSU of Aigner. Klingbeil, who is also vice chancellor, highlighted that she has “an incredible power to unite” and that “she is a politician who is very close to the people and who speaks with them as equals.” “That is absolutely crucial in these times,” Klingbeil said.

Aigner is a veteran CSU leader, currently president of the Bavarian Parliament, where the Christian Socials have governed for decades.

The Greens, according to the weekly Der Spiegel, which reported the news, also see Aigner as a good candidate.

Die Linke, the party of the post-communist left, has been against this candidacy. Heidi Reichinnek, parliamentary leader of the party, has asked in the newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine that the presidency be assumed by a person independent of the parties: "We must propose a non-partisan candidacy that broad sectors of the population feel represents them." “The fact that the position of federal president is constantly passed from hand to hand between the CDU/CSU and the SPD as a patronage position does not do justice to the function of this position,” Reichinnek added.

Only one of the 12 presidents of the Federal Republic of Germany had not been a member of a political party: this independent was Steinmeier's predecessor, Joachim Gauck, a Protestant pastor and veteran democratic fighter in communist Germany. Gauck was elected in 2012 as a consensus option for the SPD, CDU, CSU, Greens and the liberals of the FDP.

The FDP is the only party apart from the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats that has been able to include, on two occasions, one of its leaders on the select list of federal presidents. The best known is Theodor Heuss, the first president of the Federal Republic of Germany, between 1949 and 1959.

For weeks, Aigner's name had been mentioned by important leaders of the CDU and the CSU as a suitable person to be president. Merz admitted last Monday in a meeting with members of his party that it was time for Germany to have a woman as head of state.