InGerman politics, the termchancellor candidate (German:Kanzlerkandidat) refers to the "lead candidate" nominated by a political party to becomechancellor, should their party secure a parliamentary majority in aGerman federal election. By naming a chancellor candidate, a party signals that its parliamentary group (Fraktion) intends to elect this individual as chancellor in the newly constitutedBundestag.

According toArticle 63, Paragraph 1 of theBasic Law, thechancellor is elected by theBundestag on the proposal of thepresident. This process is particularly relevant at the beginning of a newparliamentary term, as the incumbent chancellor’s term officially ends at that point, requiring the election of a new chancellor and the formation of a newgovernment, including a cabinet.Since a majority in the Bundestag is crucial for electing the chancellor, the larger parties traditionally nominate a chancellor candidate before a federal election to indicate to voters whom they intend to support for the position.

Smaller parties typically refrain from nominating a chancellor candidate. Until 2002, only theCDU/CSU and theSocial Democratic Party (SPD) put forward chancellor candidates. However, in the2002 federal election, theFree Democratic Party (FDP) did so for the first time, and in2021,Alliance 90/The Greens also nominated a chancellor candidate for the first time.^[1] In the2025 German federal election, a chancellor candidate was nominated byAlternative for Germany (AfD)^[2] andSahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) as well.^[3]

There is no regulated procedure for nominating a candidate for chancellor. In political practice, the major parties nominate their candidate for chancellor in the run-up to the federal election (up to a year in advance), often byvoting at aparty conference. The respective candidate for chancellor is the main figure of the party in the subsequentelection campaign, even if they cannot be elected directly by the electorate; instead, their prospects of becoming chancellor are strengthened by the voters' vote, in that they vote for the candidate's party.

At the SPD party conference inHanover in 1960, a German political party elected a candidate for chancellor for the first time. The candidate was the GoverningMayor of Berlin,Willy Brandt. The SPD strategist and long-time companion of Brandt,Egon Bahr, explained in retrospect that the then Bundestag memberKlaus Schütz had brought this idea with him from the USA when he observed theelection campaign of theDemocratic presidential candidateJohn F. Kennedy.

With the exception ofAngela Merkel in2021, 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. Nevertheless, there may be a discussion within the Chancellor's party about whether the incumbent should run again, as in the run-up to the1998 German federal election, when voices were raised within the CDU calling for a "generational change" from ChancellorHelmut Kohl, in office since 1982, toCDU/CSU parliamentary group leaderWolfgang Schäuble.^[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 the2013 German federal election, when three names in the SPD were being discussed as candidates for chancellor: party chairmanSigmar Gabriel, chairman of theSPD parliamentary group [de]Frank-Walter Steinmeier and formerFederal Minister of FinancePeer Steinbrück.^[6]

The sister partiesCDU andCSU nominate a joint candidate; so far the choice has fallen twice, in1980 and2002, on a candidate from the CSU (namely the respective party leadersFranz Josef Strauß andEdmund Stoiber). In the run-up to the2002 German federal election, the termChancellor question (or K-question for short) was coined to describe the decision between the two possible Union candidates for chancellor - CDU leaderAngela Merkel andEdmund Stoiber. A candidate for chancellor who challenges an incumbent chancellor is usually the party orparliamentary group leader orhead of government of one of theGerman states. At times when both major parties governed together at the federal level (grand coalition), federal ministers or the incumbent deputies of the chancellor usually stood as candidates for chancellor. An exception wasHans-Jochen Vogel, who at the time of his candidacy for chancellor in 1983 was only a member of theHouse of Representatives of (West) Berlin (but he had previously been a federal minister for many years). The candidate for chancellor is usually given first place on thestate list by his home state association.

Gerhard Schröder andOlaf Scholz are the onlyFederal Chancellors who came into office after a federal election as candidates for chancellor who differed from the party chairmanship; as incumbents,Ludwig Erhard andHelmut Schmidt each successfully ran for re-election without the party chairmanship, but Gerhard Schröder was unsuccessful.

In theNorth German Confederation and theGerman Empire (1871–1918), the Chancellor was appointed by theGerman Emperor; the people and theReichstag elected by them had no say in the appointment of this office. In theWeimar Republic (1918–1933), the Reichstag was granted a destructivevote of no confidence, which led to the resignation of the Chancellor, while the appointment of the Chancellor remained the responsibility of the head of state, theReich President. Accordingly, the nomination of candidates for Chancellor was not yet common practice, any more than it was in the first years of theFederal Republic after 1949; the nomination of a Chancellor was rather a subject ofcoalition negotiations and was only carried out after the election by the winning party alliance.

A development that only came to a provisional conclusion in the course of the1950s brought about a change here: the concentration of voters on a few competitive parties and the associated development of theCDU,CSU andSPD intolarge popular parties with the prospect of an absolute majority of seats in parliament or an alliance with a smaller coalition partner. Only now could these parties realistically claim that their candidate would actually be elected Chancellor in the event of anelection victory. BeforeWilly Brandt was expressly nominated as a candidate for Chancellor for the first time in 1960, the respective party and parliamentary group leaders of the opposition were considered "natural" candidates.

After the nomination of a candidate for chancellor had long been made only by the two major parties represented in theBundestag, theCDU/CSU and SPD, the FDP also nominated a candidate for chancellor for the first time in the2002 German federal election with its chairmanGuido Westerwelle. The nomination was made with the aim of appearing in a personalized media environment on an equal footing with the candidates for chancellorGerhard Schröder (SPD) andEdmund Stoiber (CDU/CSU), and as a supplement to the official election goal of achieving 18 percent of thesecond 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 theFederal 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."

Guido Westerwelle’s appearance as candidate for chancellor was commented on by the media in a critical and even malicious manner; even Westerwelle himself later described his nomination as "candidate for chancellor" as a mistake.

For the2021 German federal election,Annalena Baerbock was nominated as the first candidate for chancellor byAlliance 90/The Greens, after the party was continuously certified as the second strongest force after theCDU/CSU and thus also ahead of theSPD from around October 2018 to July 2021.^[7][8] However, the high poll ratings could not be confirmed in the election, as the Greens only became the third strongest force, while the SPD with its candidateOlaf Scholz even narrowly won the election ahead of the CDU/CSU. After the election, however, the party became part of thetraffic light coalition under Scholz and provided the Vice Chancellor with Economics MinisterRobert Habeck, while Baerbock was appointed Foreign Minister.

For the2025 German federal election, theAfD nominated its first female candidate for chancellor,Alice Weidel.^[9] In the run-up to the election, the AfD had consistently ranked second in polls behind the CDU/CSU.^[10] TheBSW followed suit with the appointment ofSahra Wagenknecht.^[3]

The following table lists all lead candidates (or "chancellor candidates" from the 1961 federal election) who have stood for the major parties CDU/CSU and SPD in federal elections since 1949. In addition, the FDP's candidacy for chancellor in 2002 and the candidacies for chancellor of Alliance 90/The Greens since 2021 are listed. In2025, the AfD and BSW put forward a female candidate for chancellor for the first time.

• Presidential candidate
• Shadow cabinet

• Daniela Forkmann,Saskia Richter [de] (Hrsg.):Gescheiterte Kanzlerkandidaten. Von Kurt Schumacher bis Edmund Stoiber. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2007,ISBN 978-3-531-15051-2.

• Alle Unions-Kanzlerkandidaten on the pages ofHandelsblatts

• Political terminology in Germany
• Chancellors of Germany
• German voting rights
• German political candidates

• CS1 German-language sources (de)
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles containing German-language text