Chancellor candidate

[1] In the upcoming 2025 German federal election, a chancellor candidate will be nominated by Alternative for Germany (AFD)[2] and Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).

The SPD strategist and long-time companion of Brandt, Egon Bahr, explained in retrospect that the then Bundestag member Klaus Schütz had brought this idea with him from the USA when he observed the election campaign of the Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy.

With the exception of Angela Merkel in 2021, the incumbent Chancellor has always run again in the next federal election in order to be able to continue in office with the support of the voters.

[4][5] The decision on a candidate for chancellor – a position with great media impact – can lead to strong disputes within the opposition party, as was the case in the run-up to the 2013 German federal election, when three names in the SPD were being discussed as candidates for chancellor: party chairman Sigmar Gabriel, chairman of the SPD parliamentary group [de] Frank-Walter Steinmeier and former Federal Minister of Finance Peer Steinbrück.

An exception was Hans-Jochen Vogel, who at the time of his candidacy for chancellor in 1983 was only a member of the House of Representatives of (West) Berlin (but he had previously been a federal minister for many years).

The nomination was made with the aim of appearing in a personalized media environment on an equal footing with the candidates for chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) and Edmund Stoiber (CDU/CSU), and as a supplement to the official election goal of achieving 18 percent of the second vote ("Strategy 18 [de]”).

The attempt to force participation in the television debates (Fernsehduell [de]) of the candidates Schröder and Stoiber by means of a court decision resulted in a defeat for the FDP before the Federal Constitutional Court:"Accordingly, the participation of the complainant's chairman is ruled out because - which the complainant herself does not ultimately dispute - he has no realistic prospect of taking over the office of Federal Chancellor after the election on 22 September 2002.

For the 2021 German federal election, Annalena Baerbock was nominated as the first candidate for chancellor by Alliance 90/The Greens, after the party was continuously certified as the second strongest force after the CDU/CSU and thus also ahead of the SPD from around October 2018 to July 2021.

Election poster with Helmut Kohl , Leipzig in 1990. Kohl holds the record of having been a candidate for chancellor six times (1976 and between 1983 and 1998, the first time as leader of the opposition).
Election posters 1961 with portraits of Chancellor candidate Willy Brandt (SPD) and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (CDU)
In 2002, FDP chairman Guido Westerwelle presented himself as a candidate for chancellor in accordance with " Strategy 18 [ de ] ", with the aim of receiving 18 percent of the vote. He received 7.4 percent.