BERLIN — Chancellor Friedrich Merz threw his political weight behind Bavarian parliament speaker Ilse Aigner on Sunday, positioning the 61-year-old conservative to become Germany’s first female head of state.
Merz announced his decision during a closed Christian Democratic Union dinner in Berlin, breaking weeks of internal party deadlock over the succession. The chancellor plans to formalize her nomination on Monday. The maneuver caps an intense lobbying push by Markus Söder, leader of the Christian Social Union, who championed Aigner after Merz failed to mount a viable CDU candidate from his own ranks.
Aigner’s path to Bellevue Palace is clear. She commands formidable cross-party consensus across the Bundestag. The Social Democrats, who share power in Merz's governing coalition, signaled their backing last week. The Greens followed suit days later. With conservative and center-left blocs aligned behind her, Aigner heads into the presidential assembly with an unassailable majority.
The post is largely ceremonial. Yet it commands immense moral authority as the constitutional conscience of the republic. If elected, Aigner will also shatter a regional glass ceiling for Bavaria’s CSU. While the CDU and CSU form a joint parliamentary faction in Berlin, every conservative president in postwar German history has emerged from the larger CDU. None have hailed from the CSU.
Aigner’s trajectory defies the polished mold of Berlin’s political class. Before entering politics in the 1990s, she trained as an electrician, developing electrical systems for helicopters. She later climbed through federal ranks, holding cabinet portfolios in two coalition governments under former chancellor Angela Merkel before returning to Munich in 2013 to lead the Bavarian state parliament. She also maintains close ties with Merz, who owns a holiday residence in her Bavarian constituency.
She succeeds President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, 70. Steinmeier, a former Social Democratic foreign minister who once challenged Merkel for the chancellorship in 2009, cannot seek re-election after serving two consecutive five-year terms. His tenure concludes officially on March 18, clearing the stage for Germany's historic transition at the head of state.