Merkel’s rift with successor widens after poll disaster

Chancellor may look for new replacement as heir who led CDU campaign blamed for poor results

ANGELA MERKEL’S plans for her succession have been reportedly thrown into disarray by her party’s poor performance in the European elections.

There were unconfirmed reports yesterday of a rift between Mrs Merkel and Annegret Kramp-karrenbauer, the woman who she has lined up to replace her as chancellor.

Mrs Merkel is dismayed by Ms Kramp-karrenbauer’s handling of the election campaign, and no longer believes the younger woman is up to the job of succeeding her, unnamed officials told Bloomberg news agency.

Neither commented on the reports, but Ms Kramp-karrenbauer’s support in opinion polls has plummeted.

Mrs Merkel used her influence to manoeuvre her protégé into succeeding her as leader of the Christian Democrat party (CDU) last year.

At the time it was hailed a masterstroke by a chancellor who had even planned for own succession.

But since then the plan appears to have unravelled, with signs of a rivalry between the two politicians and a series of missteps by Ms Kramp-karrenbauer.

That culminated this week as the CDU suffered heavy losses in the European elections following a disastrous campaign in which Mrs Merkel took a back seat to her protégé.

Things got worse for Ms Kramp-karrenbauer yesterday as she was accused of calling for the party’s social media critics to be censored.

Her comments followed a particularly damaging campaign episode in which the CDU failed to respond to a highly critical one-hour video made by a prominent German Youtube user.

The CDU reportedly prepared a response but panicked and failed to release it – effectively ceding the social media battle to a 26-year-old with blue hair known only as Rezo.

Ms Kramp-karrenbauer said this week that the highly opinionated video would not have been allowed in a more traditional format during an election campaign.

“We should ask whether the same rules from the analogue age should not also apply to the digital age,” she said.

Although she backtracked, the damage was done and faced accusations of seeking to censor social media.

It was not her first contentious comment; earlier this year, she attempted to win over the CDU conservative wing with a risqué joke about transgender lavatories being for men “who aren’t sure whether they can still pee standing up”.

When the quip fell flat she doubled down, decrying the reaction as political correctness gone mad, and describing Germans as “the most uptight people in the world”.

The comment only succeeded in alienating the party moderates who voted her in as leader.