The Conservatives’ beauty contest for Merkel’s potential succession is finally coming to a climax. On Sunday, CSU leader Söder threw his hat into the ring to compete with CDU leader Laschet in the race for the conservatives’ chancellor candidacy. With the CDU’s (the bigger sister party) executive body fully united behind Laschet on Monday, the scale has tilted in favour of Laschet. Söder is shying away of calling for all CDU/CSU members’ to cast their vote for the candidacy. This would be a highly confrontational move which would also unduly delay the election campaign entry of the candidate. We expect the final announcement within the course of this week, i.e. before the Greens present their candidate on April 19th. [more]