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Official seat of the Federal President (archive photo): competition for Steinmeier
Photo: Christian Spicker / imago images / Christian Spicker
The Left nominated the doctor and social medicine specialist Gerhard Trabert for the office of Federal President.
As party circles confirmed to SPIEGEL, the personnel will be presented on Tuesday.
The »Süddeutsche Zeitung« (SZ) had initially reported.
The 65-year-old Trabert has little chance of becoming Federal President: the incumbent Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who proposed himself for re-election, is supported by all three traffic light parties. The opposition parties, the CDU and CSU, also refrained from nominating their own candidates. In addition to the Left Party, only the AfD is currently considering putting up its own candidate.
Trabert is the founder of the association “Poverty and Health in Germany” and holds a professorship for social medicine and social psychiatry at the Rhein-Main University of Applied Sciences. With his "homeless mobile" he offers free medical care for homeless people. In the federal election in 2021, Trabert ran as a direct candidate for the left in his constituency in Mainz, but missed the entry into the Bundestag. In 2004 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.
The left-wing candidate knows well that his candidacy for president is more of a symbolic character. "Of course, I will not be elected head of state, but I see a bit of an opportunity to initiate a discussion," said Trabert of the SZ. He wanted to use the candidacy to draw attention to poverty and social injustice and to appear as an advocate for people who are not heard enough. "That is one of the most intrinsic tasks of a Federal President."
Trabert's nomination is considered a surprise, as there was also in parts of the party the expectation that the left would put up a woman.
Statements by the Thuringian Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow, who brought into play that the left could also support Steinmeier, caused a lack of understanding.
Gerhard Schröder's former head of the chancellery is considered by the left to be one of the main architects of Agenda 2010.
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