Trump critic Steinmeier is tapped for German president
berlin — Germany’s ruling coalition backed Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier as the country’s next president on Monday, paving the way for an outspoken critic of Donald Trump to become head of state.
Party leaders have been wrangling for months over whom to nominate as a successor to President Joachim Gauck, a 76-yearold pastor from the ex-communist East Germany who is stepping down due to his advanced age.
On Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc agreed on Germany’s most popular politician, Steinmeier, whose name had been put forward by his Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Merkel, who was unable to put forward a viable conservative candidate, called the choice of Steinmeier a “sensible decision” that would stand for “stability, particularly in these uncertain times”, during a conference call with party leaders, participants said.
SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel, who is also Germany’s vice-chancellor and economy minister, told reporters Steinmeier was the right candidate “to uphold the good traditions of statesmanship that Germany has maintained since World War II”.
The new president — a figure who is meant to transcend party politics and serve as a moral standard bearer for the nation — will be elected on February 12 by a special assembly of MPs, delegates from the 16 federal states, and other notables.
Steinmeier, 60, has emerged in recent months as the German government’s most strident detractor of US president-elect Donald Trump.
He warned a day after Trump’s shock election that transatlantic relations would become “more difficult”. —