It's favorable for Merkel to be Nominated as new German CDU leader

Angela Merkel, 45-year-old secretary-general of Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) , is now no doubt to be nominated as candidate for the new chairwoman of the party according to the sources on Sunday.

Merkel comes from the former German Democratic Republic and first ever woman at the helm of one of the Germany's two main political parties. She would face the arduous task of improving the CDU's image badly suffered from the finance scandal since the end of last year.

There is a bitter struggle within the CDU for the leadership of the party. According to sources of the party the CDU executive board would back her as candidate for the new chairwoman during a meeting in Berlin on Monday.

As a trained eastern German physician and protege of former chancellor and CDU chairman Helmut Kohl, she has big hope of victory.

Her top opponent was Volker Ruehe, the CDU leader in the northern state Schleswig-Holstein, who had been defeated in the state election last month by the Prime Ministeress of the state from the SPD, Heide Simonis.Now a former environment minister managed to take part in the competition for the new leadership. The new party chairman will be elected at a party congress in Essen planned April 9-11.

Besides Ruehe and the former environment minister there are other possible contenders, for example Bernhard Vogel, the Prime Minister of the state of Thuringia, Kurt Biedenkopf, the Prime Minister of the state of Saxony and the Saarland's Prime Minister Peter Mueller.

It is estimated that Merkel would announce her candidature at meeting of the CDU presidium and the board in Berlin on Monday. But the meeting on Monday will make no decision on who will be named as new secretary-general.

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