Ilse Aigner becomes Federal President: one of us

Some people no longer believed in it, but then the decision was made that everything seemed to be heading towards for weeks: On January 30th, the Federal Assembly will elect Ilse Aigner, CSU politician, parliamentary speaker, former federal and state minister, Bavarian and then 62 years old, as the 13th head of state of the Federal Republic. And to the first female federal president.

As it became known on Sunday, the personnel will be officially announced on Monday afternoon - after a meeting of the CDU presidium at which Aigner was supposed to introduce himself. That's what the form wants. Not that the members of the committee don't already know her well, some of them have already publicly supported her as a candidate. CDU leader Friedrich Merz wanted to inform the executive committee of his own decision in favor of Aigner at a dinner on Sunday.

Despite the great popularity, it was not a given that Aigner won the race. Especially because Merz avoided making a commitment for a long time. And probably less because of his own reservations about Aigner. The Bavarian is considered good friends with Merz, including his wife. They already know each other from their time in the Bundestag together at the end of the 1990s. The Merz family owns a holiday home in Gmund am Tegernsee, a municipality that is in Aigner's electoral district. They see each other there regularly, sometimes go hiking, and there is also said to have been a meeting there in August when Aigner was still recovering from knee surgery.

Rather, Merz may have feared that there might be great reluctance within his own party to let his little sister go first when it comes to important personnel. A concern that has now turned out to be unjustified.

Aigner's advantages have often been listed in recent months. The conservative Upper Bavarian has a clear system of values, but also shows a clear edge when necessary. In the Bavarian state parliament, of which Aigner has been the host since 2018, it often has to be. She regularly has to deal with failures by members of the anti-democratic AfD; she has even turned off the microphone for parliamentary group leader Katrin Ebner-Steiner when she refused to be called to order.

Above all, Aigner is not a camp woman. It is not for nothing that not only Union politicians spoke out in favor of it, but also Social Democrats and Greens from across the republic. Even the president of the Israelite Community in Munich, Charlotte Knobloch, went to great lengths on her behalf. Aigner's closeness to citizens, her empathy and her friendly nature are always cited as reasons for her suitability.

That she is not the great rhetorician, not the woman for intellectual positioning? Free! Presidential speeches are perhaps not what is needed in times of a divided society. Aigner has something else that the Weizsäckers, Herzogs and Gaucks didn't have: she is one of the people herself. Being close to people doesn't have to mean singing “High on the Yellow Car” like Walter Scheel or traveling through the country as an itinerant president like Karl Carstens. Many people feel: she is one of us.

Aigner was born in Feldkirchen-Westerham in 1964. The community, in which around 10,000 residents live, is located southeast of Munich in the Rosenheim district. She still lives there today – with various family members in a three-generation house. Her parents used to run an electrical business there, where she was trained as a radio and television technician after completing secondary school. She later worked as an electrical engineer for the helicopter manufacturer Eurocopter. Not too long. In 1994, when he was not even 30 years old, Aigner was elected to the state parliament for the first time.

Aigner has already had to experience serious health setbacks twice in her life. In the “Grant & Gloria” podcast by Münchner Merkur and tz, she recently said that a dangerous tumor in her back was discovered late in her life. She was 17 years old at the time. This was a difficult time, with excruciating pain. The tumor could be removed - with the risk of paraplegia. In her forties, Aigner was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. It was successfully treated with radiation therapy.

The politician already knows Berlin, her future place of work, well, although she doesn't exactly get excited when you ask her about the city. After a legislative period in the state parliament, she moved to the Bundestag, where she remained from 1998 to 2013, and from 2008 to 2013 as Minister of Agriculture under Angela Merkel. Then she brought Prime Minister Horst Seehofer back to Bavaria as Economics Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. However, Seehofer's plan to make her his successor did not work.

When it came to the successor to the dismissed Seehofer in 2017, she shied away - to the disappointment of some party friends - from an open power struggle with Markus Söder, who became Prime Minister and a little later CSU boss. After the 2018 state election, Aigner was elected state parliament president at Söder's suggestion.

She has an ambivalent, long-term relationship with Söder. They entered the state parliament together in 1994 - both as the youngest members of parliament. They also like to pose beaming back to back in photos. Unlike Söder and the European politician Manfred Weber, they are unlikely to be united by any deep dislike. But certainly not friendship either.

So you can of course ask yourself what motivated Markus Söder to push forward Aigner's candidacy and whether his wish came "from the heart", as he claimed to great cheers at the CSU party conference for two weeks. Of course, Söder will now emerge from the matter as a strong party leader - and he will be happy about that - completely different from his CDU colleague. Merz's fickleness played into his hands without him ever knowing it. If you consider that just over six months ago, Söder was considered to be in extremely poor health after the botched local elections, the tide has definitely turned for the better for him.

On the other hand, it could have been precisely this election disaster that tempted him to speak out for Aigner in the first place - in order to ingratiate himself with the party base. The idea that Aigner could be the right person for the office of Federal President was not his at all. The proposal had been around for much longer. The former Prime Minister of Hesse, Volker Bouffier, is said to have been one of the first to do so. Of all people, Bouffier. The CDU man is said to have played a decisive role in ensuring that Armin Laschet and not Söder became the candidate for chancellor in 2021.

Keyword: Candidacy for Chancellor: Many observers are of the opinion that Söder actually hoped that his campaign for Aigner would not get away with it. Because the CSU boss has still not given up hope of moving into the Chancellery. However, having a party friend as Federal President would ultimately destroy these ambitions. Because both offices in the hands of the CSU is unthinkable.

Others, however, think that Söder's candidacy for chancellor is unrealistic anyway. And if it does come to the table, it will only be in case the Union has its back against the wall and Söder appears to be the last lifeline. In this highly unlikely case, the theory goes, it is a matter of sheer survival and it no longer matters who is the Federal President.

Another interesting theory: Söder supported Aigner's candidacy wholeheartedly - in order to "get rid of her". In Munich she could see his chair as Prime Minister, perhaps even that of the party leader. This thesis is also steep. There is no question that Aigner would be there in case of an emergency, but that she would play the regicide instead? She has made it clear often enough that this is not her role.

Nevertheless, Aigner's move into the administrative building, which is currently replacing Bellevue Palace, which is in need of renovation, is not without impact on Bavaria and the power structure in the CSU. First of all, the state parliament needs a new president. If it is to be a woman again, as is obvious, exactly 14 MPs are possible. The CSU parliamentary group does not have any more women. Three of them also sit in the cabinet. If, for example, as is sometimes speculated, Family Minister Ulrike Scharf succeeds Aigner, a new cabinet would be needed.

Even more exciting for the CSU is the question of who will take over the powerful Upper Bavaria district association, which Aigner has led for 15 years. For example, the board includes names such as that of Agriculture Minister Michaela Kaniber, a Söder confidant, and that of the former Family Minister Kerstin Schreyer.

The question still remains as to who will take over the duties of First Lady or First Gentleman in the future. After all, Aigner is unmarried and childless. "I'm going through life single," she told the Grant and Gloria podcast. She doesn't rule out a new partnership, but it's not easy to build something new in such a position. “That would be asking a lot of a partner.” By position, Aigner at that time meant that of the President of the State Parliament.