Merkel Successors Circle Waiting for Her to Step Down or Stumble

(Bloomberg) -- Angela Merkel watched from the sidelines on an icy afternoon in Berlin this week as the woman tipped by many to replace her brought more than 1,000 Christian Democratic Union delegates to their feet.

“We can only be strong if we engage all those people in the political center,” Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the 55-year-old state premier handpicked by the German chancellor to be CDU general secretary, told a rapturous party convention on Monday. Delegates eager for fresh faces at the top rewarded her with 99 percent support.

Also on the podium was Jens Spahn, 37, a high-profile Merkel critic whom the chancellor nominated to her cabinet following pressure from the party's right wing. He exhorted the CDU to “win back the trust of voters” -- code for strengthening its conservative credentials.

For the first time, the presence of a younger crop of CDU leaders is dismantling Merkel's most formidable wall of defense: that there's no viable replacement for the woman who's governed Germany for more than 12 years and has led the party since the turn of the century.

Now, Germans are getting a glimpse of what the post-Merkel landscape may look like.

Read more: Who's Who in the Looming Battle for the Soul of Merkel's Party

“All of a sudden, she's giving them a stage -- she's positioning them,” Andrea Roemmele, a political scientist at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, said in an interview. “It also shows what kind of pressure she's under.”

An inconclusive election victory in September, the arrival of a far-right party in the federal parliament and two tortuous attempts to form a government have left the CDU roiled over Merkel's centrist course and where the party goes from here.

Those tensions will surely boil over if the Social Democrats say “no” to joining another CDU-led government in a members' ballot to be announced Sunday. If they back another “grand coalition,” Merkel, 63, is unlikely to be going anywhere for now -- she says she'll stay for another full four-year term.

But for the longest-serving Group of Seven leader, who's spent her political career out-maneuvering or out-waiting rivals in the male-dominated CDU, the generational shift signals she may be choreographing a handover. None of Merkel's seven predecessors since World War II left office voluntarily.

New vs. Old

Speculation that Kramp-Karrenbauer is the top contender to succeed Merkel is intensifying now that the premier of Saarland, a region bordering France, has been elevated to a key CDU post.

Merkel also nominated Julia Kloeckner, 45, the CDU leader in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and Anja Karliczek, 47, a little-known lawmaker, for cabinet posts.

Many of the old guard remain. Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, long tipped as a possible Merkel heir, is poised to keep her job. Yet Thomas de Maiziere, a mainstay on the shortlist of potential successors in the past, is leaving the cabinet and Wolfgang Schaeuble, the former finance minister and CDU stalwart, is already gone, serving as president of the lower house, or Bundestag.

As allies and adversaries adjust to a Germany in transition, Merkel is up for re-election as party chairwoman at the CDU's next convention in December. That would position her to lead the party until 2020, the year before the next scheduled election. Should she decide against seeking a fifth term, that would probably be the moment to hand over the reins.

‘Room for Successor'

All bets are off if SPD members vote to drop out of the government, a scenario that's likely to trigger a repeat election.

After her first attempt to form a coalition government with the Greens and Free Democrats collapsed in November, Merkel was quick to say she'd run again if needed. While the lack of a groomed heir made that claim easier, the chancellor has now shifted the goalposts.

“The question has always been, does Merkel give room for a successor to develop?” Roemmele said. “As of this week, the answer is yes.”

--With assistance from Arne Delfs

To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net, Tony Czuczka

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