Federal Minister and Member of the Bundestag (1980–2008) Seehofer served as member of the German federal parliament (
Bundestag) as a directly elected delegate (
Direktkandidat) from his
constituency Ingolstadt from 1980 until 2008. At the
2005 federal election he received 65.9 percent of the votes in his district. Seehofer was
Federal Minister for Health and Social Security from 1992 to 1998 in the
cabinet of
Chancellor Helmut Kohl. In 1993, Seehofer ordered that Germany's 117-year-old Federal Health Agency be dissolved following a review of how the government in the 1980s handled the cases of thousands of
hemophiliacs who were infected through blood contaminated with
HIV. The Health Ministry took over the agency's responsibilities. Also, Seehofer announced that Germany would contribute to an emergency fund for victims of the scandal. In the context of the crisis, he came under considerable pressure to resign. After Helmut Kohl lost his bid for a fifth term in the
1998 federal election, in the opposition Seehofer became deputy chairman of the
CDU/CSU parliamentary group of the Bundestag in October 1998, which was led at the time by Kohl's successor
Wolfgang Schäuble. Ahead of the
2005 elections,
Edmund Stoiber included Seehofer in his
shadow cabinet for the Christian Democrats’ unsuccessful campaign to unseat
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. He served as Health Minister
Ulla Schmidt's counterpart in negotiating the cross-party healthcare bill of 2003. Because of his disagreement with CDU leader
Angela Merkel on flat-rate contributions (
Gesundheitsprämie) to the federal health insurance he resigned from his leadership post in the parliamentary group on 22 November 2004 but remained deputy chairman of his party and kept his Bundestag seat. Seehofer was appointed
Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection in the
cabinet of Angela Merkel and stayed in office from 2005 to 2008.
Minister President of Bavaria (2008–2018) After his party lost more than 17% of the popular vote in the
Bavarian state elections of 2008, incumbent Minister-President
Günther Beckstein and Chairman of the CSU,
Erwin Huber, announced their resignations. Seehofer was quickly proposed as their successor. At a party convention on 25 October he was affirmed as the new Chairman of the CSU with 90% of the votes, and on 27 October he was elected Minister-President by the
Landtag with votes from the
Free Democratic Party, forming the first
coalition government in Bavaria since 1962. During the term 2011–2012, Seehofer served as
President of the German Bundesrat. As such, he functioned as Acting head of state from
Christian Wulff's resignation on 17 February 2012 until the
election of
Joachim Gauck on 18 March 2012. Under Seehofer's leadership, the State of Bavaria took to the
Federal Constitutional Court in 2012 in order to dispute the legality of Germany's post-World War II system of financial redistribution among the country's 16 states. Bavaria, a beneficiary of the system until 1988, had paid more in 2011 than it got out in the 40 years it was a net recipient. The State of
Hesse, another per-capita contributor, joined the lawsuit. Also under Seehofer's leadership, the CSU won an absolute majority in the
2013 state elections, heralding strong momentum for the conservative parties in the
federal elections the following week. From 2013 to 2018 Seehofer also was a member of the
Bavarian Landtag (state parliament) representing the constituency of
Neuburg-Schrobenhausen. Together with Angela Merkel and
Sigmar Gabriel, he later led the negotiations to form a
coalition government on the national level. In late 2013, Seehofer won a record 95.3 percent of the party's votes to continue as chairman. In early 2015, under pressure from younger rivals, Seehofer announced he would retire at the next state elections in 2018. Later that year, when was chosen the fifth time as leader of the CSU, he received 87.2 percent of the vote, some 8 percent down on the result he achieved in 2013. , 2017 In August 2016, Seehofer said he may break the unity of the "sister parties" (
CDU/CSU) and run a separate CSU campaign in the
2017 national elections, a move widely seen as an effort to keep pressure on Merkel (being the leader of CDU) to shift to a more restrictive refugee policy in the
European migrant crisis. He also announced to stay on as CSU leader beyond 2018. When the CSU's share of the vote in Bavaria fell 10 percentage points compared with 2013, to below 39 per cent, Seehofer faced demands to resign. On 4 December 2017, he announced to step down as Minister President and not run as leading candidate in the 2018 state elections; instead, he said he would hand over the office to
Markus Söder in the first quarter of 2018.
Return to federal cabinet (2018–2021) On 1 March 2018, Seehofer confirmed that he will be in Merkel's cabinet if the SPD party members vote in favour of the coalition. He took over the role of Interior Minister. He wants a "zero tolerance" policy toward criminals. a topic already often discussed in Germany, since Federal President
Christian Wulff had said in a 2010 speech that Islam was part of Germany. He noted that certain public holidays correspond to certain church holidays. Merkel feared that unilaterally sending migrants back to neighbouring countries without seeking a multilateral European agreement could endanger the stability of the European Union. In June 2018, Seehofer backed down from a threat to bypass her in the disagreement over immigration policy until she would come back on 1 July from attempts to find a solution at European level. During these weeks the media was speculating not only on a government fall down but also on a split of the CDU/CSU alliance, which consists of the CSU in Bavaria and the CDU in the remaining 15 states. It would have meant that the CSU would run for elections all over Germany and the CDU would run in Bavaria, which they have never done before. On 1 July 2018, Seehofer rejected the agreement Merkel had obtained with EU countries as too little and declared his resignation during a meeting of his party's executive, but they refused to accept it. During the night of 2 July 2018, Seehofer and Merkel announced they had settled their differences and agreed to instead accept a compromise of tighter border control. As a result of the agreement, Seehofer agreed to not resign, and to negotiate bilateral agreements with the specific countries himself. Seehofer was criticised for almost bringing the government down while the monthly number of migrants targeted by that policy was in single figures. When the
2021 European floods caused Germany's worst natural disaster in more than half a century, with more than 170 dead and thousands missing, Seehofer again faced calls from opposition politicians to resign over the high death toll. ==Political positions==