“This is one of the most difficult periods in Germany’s history,” said Kramp-Karrenbauer, standing next to Merkel. That may have paved the way for conservative victories in three other states and Merkel’s victory in September. The Saarland governor, who has ruled for the last seven years, won re-election with unexpected ease in her tiny state, with a population of just 1 million, after a spirited campaign in early 2017. Merkel, who is the de facto leader of the European Union as head of its strongest economy, in part owes her re-election last year to Kramp-Karrenbauer. The chancellor was the party’s general secretary herself from 1998 until she became its leader in 2000. “The party is fortunate that she’s eager to come to Berlin to help hold the CDU together and help create a stronger feeling of belonging,” Merkel said at a news conference in Berlin. Merkel’s popularity has plunged since elections in September, and a growing chorus of party leaders has called for her to step aside. Right-wing critics of the chancellor, who has been in power since 2005, are upset about her pushing the conservative party to the center as well as her contentious 2015 decision to allow more than a million refugees from Syria and elsewhere into Germany. The governor of Saarland, the 55-year-old Kramp-Karrenbauer has conservative views on social issues and a track record of electoral victories that should quiet Merkel’s many naysayers. Merkel did not, however, say when she might step aside. In what had all the hallmarks of a classic Merkel attempt to thwart a rebellion in her conservative party’s right wing, the 63-year-old leader, elected five months ago to a fourth four-year term, caught her rivals off guard by picking Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer as deputy party leader - in effect, the crown princess. Two decades after promising to quit politics before turning into a “half-dead wreck,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel began paving the way for her exit from office by picking the popular governor of a small state on the French border as her successor in a surprise move on Monday.
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