Edmund Stoiber

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In 1978, Stoiber was elected secretary general of the CSU, a post he held until 1982/83. In this capacity, he served as campaign manager of Franz-Josef Strauss, the first Bavarian leader to run for the chancellorship, in the 1980 national elections. From 1982 to 1986 he served as deputy to the Bavarian secretary of the state and then, in the position of State Minister, led the State Chancellery from 1982 to 1988. From 1988 to 1993 he served as State Minister of the Interior.

In May 1993, the Landtag of Bavaria, the state's parliament, elected Stoiber as Minister-President succeeding Max Streibl. He came to power amid a political crisis involving a sex scandal, surrounding a contender for the state premiership. Upon taking office, he nominated Strauss' daughter Monika Hohlmeier as State Minister for Education and Cultural Affairs.

In his capacity as Minister-President, Stoiber served as President of the Bundesrat in 1995/96. In 1998, he also succeeded Theo Waigel as chairman of the CSU.

During Stoiber's 14 years leading Bavaria, the state solidified its position as one of Germany's richest. Already by 1998, under his leadership, the state had privatized more than $3 billion worth of state-owned businesses and used that money to invest in new infrastructure and provide venture capital for new companies. He was widely regarded a central figure in building one of Europe's most powerful regional economies, attracting thousands of hi-tech, engineering and media companies and reducing unemployment to half the national average.

In 2002, Stoiber politically outmaneuvered CDU chairwoman, Angela Merkel, and was declared the CDU/CSU's candidate for the office of chancellor by practically the entire leadership of the CSU's sister party CDU, challenging Gerhard Schröder. At that time, Merkel had generally been seen as a transitional chair and was strongly opposed by the CDU's male leaders, often called the party's "crown princes".

In the run up to the 2002 national elections, the CSU/CDU held a huge lead in the opinion polls and Stoiber famously remarked that "... this election is like a football match where it's the second half and my team is ahead by 2–0." However, on election day things had changed. The SPD had mounted a huge comeback, and the CDU/CSU was narrowly defeated (though both the SPD and CDU/CSU had 38.5% of the vote, the SPD was ahead by a small 6,000 vote margin, winning 251 seats to the CDU/CSU's 248). The election was one of modern Germany's closest votes.

Gerhard Schröder was re-elected as chancellor by the parliament in a coalition with the Greens, who had increased their vote share marginally. Many commentators faulted Stoiber's reaction to the floods in eastern Germany, in the run-up to the election, as a contributory factor in his party's poor electoral result and defeat. In addition, Schröder distinguished himself from his opponent by taking an active stance against the upcoming United States-led Iraq War. His extensive campaigning on this stance was widely seen as swinging the election to the SPD in the weeks running up to the election.

Stoiber subsequently led the CSU to an absolute majority in the 2003 Bavarian state elections, for the third time in a row, winning this time 60.7% of the votes and a two-thirds majority in the Landtag. This was the widest margin ever achieved by a German party in any state.

Between 2003 and 2004, Stoiber served as co-chair (alongside Franz Müntefering) of the First Commission on the modernization of the federal state (Föderalismuskommission I), which had been established to reform the division of powers between federal and state authorities in Germany. In February 2004, he became a candidate of Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder for the presidency of the European Commission but he decided not to run for this office.

Stoiber had ambitions to run again for the chancellorship, but Merkel secured the nomination, and in November 2005 she won the general election. He was slated to join Merkel's first grand coalition cabinet as Economics minister. However, on 1 November 2005, he announced his decision to stay in Bavaria, due to personnel changes on the SPD side of the coalition (Franz Müntefering resigned as SPD chairman) and an unsatisfactory apportionment of competences between himself and designated Science minister Annette Schavan. Stoiber also resigned his seat in the 16th Bundestag, being a member from 18 October to 8 November.

Subsequently, criticism grew in the CSU, where other politicians had to scale back their ambitions after Stoiber's decision to stay in Bavaria. On 18 January 2007, he announced his decision to stand down from the posts of minister-president and party chairman by 30 September. Günther Beckstein, then Bavarian state minister of the interior, succeeded him as minister-president and Erwin Huber as party chairman, defeating Horst Seehofer at a convention at 18 September 2007 with 58,1% of the votes. Both Beckstein and Huber resigned after the 2008 state elections, in which the CSU vote dropped to 43,4% and the party had to form a coalition with another party for the first time since 1966.

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• 1984: Bavarian Order of Merit
• 1996: Karl Valentin Order
• 1996: Grand Order of King Dmitar Zvonimir
• 1999: Grand Cross of the Order of the Star of Romania
• 2000: Orden wider den tierischen Ernst
• 2002: Commander of the Legion of Honour
• 2003: Officer of the Ordre national du Québec
• 2004: Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 2005: Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold with Sash for Services to the Republic of Austria
• 2006: Grand Cross of Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
• 2007: Large Gold Medal of the province of Upper Austria
• 2007: Honorary degree awarded by the Sogang University
• 2008: Steiger Award
• 2009: Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg