German president set to be elected for another term

A special parliamentary assembly is meeting to elect Germany’s president for the next five years

BERLIN -- A special parliamentary assembly meets Sunday to elect Germany’s president for the next five years. Incumbent Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has been endorsed by most mainstream political parties, is seeking a second term as the largely ceremonial head of state.

The president will be elected by a special assembly of 736 people made up of the members of parliament’s lower house and representatives of Germany’s 16 states. The Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats — the three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition — are expected to have a majority in the assembly.

Germany’s biggest opposition party — the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union — also said that it will support Steinmeier’s reelection, leaving the head of state well-placed to win another five years in office.

Steinmeier, 66, announced that he would seek a second term last May, before the parliamentary election that brought Scholz’s coalition to power and at a time when his chances of re-election looked far from certain. The president said he wanted to help heal divisions widened by the coronavirus pandemic.