Merkel loyalist wins party vote to succeed her

HAMBURG: Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a close ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, on Friday won a party vote to succeed the veteran leader at the helm of the centre-right CDU. The current general secretary of the party saw off a challenge from Merkel´s long-time rival Friedrich Merz who sought to shift the CDU further right, with delegates at a congress giving her 51.7 percent of the vote. Kramp-Karrenbauer, 56, is Merkel’s protege and was the continuity candidate favored by the party elite. She won the leadership with 517 votes from 999 votes cast by delegates. Her rival, Friedrich Merz, won 482 votes in a run-off. A former state premier in Saarland, where she led a three-way coalition, Kramp-Karrenbauer has a reputation for uniting support across the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and a talent for striking alliances with other parties.