Merkel’s Party Picks New Leader

Germany’s ruling CDU party picked Armin Laschet to be its new chairman on Saturday, possibly paving the way for him to replace Angela Merkel as chancellor at elections later this year. 
Laschet is currently the prime minister of Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia region, the most populous federal state in the country. He beat conservative rival Friedrich Merz by 521 to 466 in a vote that was forced online due to the coronavirus pandemic, CNBC reported.
“I want to do everything so that we can stick together through this year ... and then make sure that the next chancellor in the federal elections will be from the [CDU/CSU] union,” Laschet said after the contest on Saturday.
Born in 1961, he was first elected to the Bundestag (German Parliament) in 1994 and his election is seen as a continuation of Merkel’s policies, as he has pledged to keep the CDU firmly in the “middle of society”.