Now it is clear: In addition to the designated Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU) and Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Al-Wazir (The Greens), Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser also wants to fight for a place in the State Chancellery in the state elections next autumn.
The reason why the Social Democrats are still taking their time with the official nomination of the 51-year-old can be found in Berlin.
Faeser belongs to a federal government that has only been in office for six months and is facing a historic challenge with the Ukraine war.
The Hessian politician is primarily responsible for taking in the refugees.
Family Minister Anne Spiegel has just dropped out.
If, in this fragile situation, another important member of the cabinet officially entered the campaign for the office of prime minister, things would no longer be entirely on point.
This would weaken the federal government.
That is why the Hessian SPD, out of consideration for the interests of their party friend Olaf Scholz, has abandoned the original plan to nominate Faeser this year and postponed the official nomination of candidates to 2023.
However, the politician, who belongs to the right wing of the party, demonstrated to the left camp in the SPD at the same time her determination not to let Hesse take the reins out of her hands.
The fact that she received 94.3 percent of the votes when she was re-elected is significant: the party left follows the top woman without a murmur.
If Faeser does not make any serious mistakes in her Berlin government office before the state elections in Hesse, she is fighting on a solid and broad basis.
The two male competitors are faced with a woman who not only has a stable power base in Hesse, but is also well known as Federal Minister of the Interior and has the greatest political weight of the three aspirants.
The other parties will counter that Faeser's heart is in Berlin and not in Wiesbaden.
Whether this strategy catches on with the citizens is of some importance for the outcome of the election.