Ilse Aigner set for nomination as Germany's first female federal president on 9 November

Nomination due on Monday

Ilse Aigner, president of the Bavarian state parliament (Landtag), is expected to be named as Germany's next federal president when the CDU leadership meets on Monday, 9 November 2026. As of Saturday, 7 November, no party had officially confirmed the choice. Reports from Friday, 6 November said CDU leaders had agreed on her, and the chancellor's circle would only point to the party bodies meeting on Monday. Friedrich Merz is due to host the CDU presidium for dinner on Sunday, 8 November, before the decision. The post is held by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose term ends next year, and the Federal Assembly of 1,260 members meets in Berlin on 30 January 2027 to choose his successor.

Backing across party lines

Support for Aigner has spread beyond the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU. Markus Söder, Bavarian premier and CSU chairman, proposed her earlier, and TVP Info reports that the SPD and the Greens also back her. At a Munich event in late October, Söder told the audience he would wish her the post, and Aigner stood to a long round of applause. SPD parliamentary group leader Matthias Miersch spoke warmly of her, while Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil called her a down-to-earth politician with strong integrative power, a quality he said Germany needs at this time. Mario Voigt, Thuringia's CDU minister-president, said she has what it takes to be federal president.

Career and profile

Aigner, 61, has taken an unusual route to the top. According to profiles published on Saturday, she left school without an Abitur, has no university degree, and worked in a helicopter manufacturing plant before entering politics. TVP Info reports she trained as a radio and television technician in 1981 and later qualified as an electrical engineer for helicopter systems. Her political start came in 1990, when she joined the local council in Feldkirchen-Westerham, taking over from her father, an electrical master who sat for the CSU.

“We more or less handed the office over to each other.”

Under Angela Merkel, she became federal consumer protection minister in 2008. Tagesschau describes that post as one of the most thankless in government, with EHEC on sprouts, dioxin in eggs and horsemeat in lasagne among the crises she had to manage. She now serves as president of the Bavarian Landtag.

What the office would mean

If elected, she would be the first woman to hold the presidency, following twelve men, and the first CSU member to occupy it, according to TVP Info. NZZ frames her candidacy as a chance to connect the highest office more closely with people's everyday lives. Her lack of a degree and her background outside the political class are central to how commentators describe her appeal.

Timeline to the vote

The sequence runs from Söder's remarks in late October to the expected Monday nomination and the Berlin vote in January.

The Federal Assembly vote on 30 January 2027 is the next fixed date, while the nomination still awaits a formal announcement after the Monday meeting.