A German parliamentary assembly will elect country's new president today. The German president has little executive power, but is considered an important moral authority. <br/><br/>The new head of state will succeed Joachim Gauck, who announced last year that he wouldn't seek a second five-year term because of his age. The president is elected by a special 1,260-member assembly made up of the 630 lawmakers in parliament's lower house and an equal number of representatives from Germany's 16 states.<br/>'<br/>Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's foreign minister until last month, has the support of Chancellor Angela Merkel's grand coalition of center-right and center-left parties. <br/><br/><br/>Steinmeier has had a long career in German politics, as former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's chief of staff, he was one of the main architects of Schroeder's 2003 package of economic reforms and welfare-state cuts, which has been credited with making the German economy more robust. Under Merkel, he served twice as foreign minister from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 until this year.<br/>