Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to quit as CDU leader amid far-right 'firewall' row

Successor to Angela Merkel also says she won’t run for chancellorship of Germany

Philip Oltermann in Berlin
@philipoltermann
Mon 10 Feb 2020 10.36 GMT
First published on Mon 10 Feb 2020 09.03 GMT

Angela Merkel’s designated successor has announced she is not planning to run for the German chancellorship at the next federal election and plans to step down as leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), German media reported on Monday morning.

The surprise announcement comes in the middle of a major row over the centre-right party’s “firewall” against the far-right, after CDU delegates in eastern Germany defied the party headquarter’s ban on cooperating with the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, 57, won the contest to succeed Merkel as leader of the CDU in December 2018 and was seen as the candidate most likely to continue the current German chancellor’s centrist course.

But “AKK”, as she has come to be known in German media, has struggled to build a profile in Merkel’s shadow, even after doubling up as defence minister last July.

Questions over her control over an increasingly divided CDU returned to the fore last week, when politicians from the party’s branch in Thuringia voted with the AfD to oust the state’s premier Bodo Ramelow, from the leftwing Die Linke party.

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