CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel has proposed that the governor of Germany’s tiny western state of Saarland should run her party’s day-to-day operations – putting her in prime position to succeed Merkel as leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union.

Merkel said she wants the party to elect Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to the post of general-secretary next Monday. The party’s current general-secretary, Peter Tauber, is stepping down over health issues.

Speaking alongside Kramp-Karrenbauer at the party’s headquarters in Berlin, Merkel said the 55-year-old would bring a lot of experience and credibility to the role at a time when the Christian Democrats are under pressure to define their political positions.

Conservative voters have abandoned the party in recent years, partly over Merkel’s welcoming stance on immigration, even though it still came first in last September’s election with almost 33 per cent of the vote.

Explaining why she was willing to leave her post as governor of one of Germany’s 16 states to devote her energy to the party’s headquarters in Berlin, Kramp-Karrenbauer said: “We are experiencing one of the most difficult political phases in the history of (post-war) Germany.”

Kramp-Karrenbauer has been governor of Saarland on Germany’s western border with France and Luxembourg since 2011.