Merz follows Söder's suggestion - Ilse Aigner should become Federal President

All signs point to Ilse Aigner (CSU) as Federal President. Chancellor and CDU leader Friedrich Merz is responding to the suggestion of his sister party CSU and wants to nominate the President of the Bavarian state parliament as a candidate for the highest state office. At a CDU executive committee dinner on Sunday evening, he suggested that Aigner be nominated as a joint candidate for the black-red coalition, a party spokeswoman said. The party committees will officially meet on Monday to decide on the candidate.

This should pave the way for Aigner to stand for election as Frank-Walter Steinmeier's successor in the Federal Assembly scheduled for January 30th. Representatives of the SPD and the Greens had also already spoken out in favor of the 61-year-old. Aigner can therefore hope for a clear majority in the Federal Assembly.

Merz had waited to make a decision

In addition to her state political experience, Aigner has also worked at the federal level. She became Minister of Agriculture under former Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) in 2008. Aigner is a trained electrical engineer. In the discussion about the right person for the highest state office, Aigner's closeness to the people, her dealings with people and her demarcation with extremists were praised across parties. Aigner has been President of the Bavarian State Parliament since 2018.

CSU party leader Markus Söder brought up Aigner early on as the first female head of state in Germany and has repeated this several times in the past few weeks. CDU leader Friedrich Merz did not initially indicate whether he had adopted the proposal. There was also discussion about prominent women from the CDU. Merz had already stated that the next German head of state should be female.