First elected to the Bundestag in 1980, he served as Minister for Health and Social Security in the christian-liberal cabinets of Helmut Kohl from 1992 to 1998, going to the opposition afterwards and returning to the government as Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection in the grand coalition cabinet of Angela Merkel from 2005 to 2008. Following a disastrous result for his party in the 2008 Bavarian state election, he became both Leader of the CSU and Minister President of Bavaria, an office he had never sought, after forming a coalition government with the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), the first coalition on state level in five decades. In 2013 he returned his party to an absolute majority on state level. He served as President of the Bundesrat from 2011 to 2012. As such he was Acting head of state of Germany from the resignation of President Christian Wulff on 17 February 2012 until the election of Joachim Gauck as Wulff's successor on 18 March 2012.