BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s opposition center-right Christian Democratic Union announced Tuesday that it has chosen its leader, Friedrich Merz, to be its candidate for chancellor in next year’s national election.
The choice was announced at a news conference in Berlin with Merz and Markus Soeder, the leader of the CDU’s smaller Bavarian counterpart, the Christian Social Union, who had also been a contender for the role.
Currently, Germany has an unpopular three-party coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz which has governed since 2021.
The coalition, which is made up of Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats, suffered losses in elections to the European Parliament earlier this year and in recent German state elections in Thuringia and Saxony.
Scholz has said he would like to run again but his candidacy hasn’t been confirmed by his party.