BERLIN (AP) – A German parliamentary assembly is electing the country’s new president on Sunday, and the country’s former foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is the overwhelming favorite to win.
The German president has little executive power, but is considered an important moral authority. The new head of state will succeed Joachim Gauck, a 77-year-old former pastor and East German pro-democracy activist who isn’t seeking a second five-year term because of his age.
The president is elected by a special 1,260-member assembly made up of the 630 lawmakers in parliament’s lower house and an equal number of representatives from Germany’s 16 states.
Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister until last month, has the support of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “grand coalition” of center-right and center-left parties. Between them, Merkel’s conservative Union bloc and the center-left Social Democrats – her junior coalition partners – hold 923 seats, which should assure Steinmeier’s election.
The presidential vote is likely to be one of the last moments of coalition unity ahead of a parliamentary election in September in which Merkel is seeking a fourth term. Both sides hope to end the “grand coalition.”