Edmund Rüdiger Stoiber is a German politician, who was the 16th Minister President of the state of Bavaria between 1993 and 2007 and chairman of the Christian Social Union between 1999 and 2007. In 2002 he candidated for the office of Chancellor of Germany in the federal election but in one of the narrowest elections in German history lost against Gerhard Schröder. On 18 January 2007, he announced his decision to step down from the posts of minister-president and party chairman by 30 September, after having been under fire in his own party for weeks.
