Leader of Merkel's party moves forward in bid for chancellor

BERLIN (AP) — The head of Chancellor Angela Merkel's party, Armin Laschet, on Monday rallied his party's leadership behind his bid to become the center-right candidate for Germany's next leader, gaining an advantage over a rival who has also declared his ambition.

The Union bloc aims to decide quickly after months of shadow-boxing between Laschet, the head of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, and Markus Soeder, who leads its smaller Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union.

Laschet and Soeder — the governors of Germany's two most populous states, North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria respectively — both officially declared on Sunday that they're prepared to run for chancellor in the Sept. 26 parliamentary election, but insisted that they will find a harmonious solution. They didn't specify how.

Both have advantages and disadvantages: Soeder's poll ratings are much stronger, but Laschet is the recently elected leader of by far the bigger of the two parties.

“The picture (in the CDU leadership) is clear,” the party's general secretary, Paul Ziemiak, said after a lengthy meeting Monday. “There is a broad majority for Armin Laschet as the chancellor candidate of the CDU and CSU.”

The party stopped short of making any formal decision. Laschet said he plans to talk with Soeder, whose own party leadership was meeting separately later Monday.

“Everyone wants a quick decision,” Laschet told a news conference. “All the facts are on the table. The problems we have to solve ... are so big that we shouldn't occupy ourselves any longer with our internal issues.”

Laschet’s support in the CDU is a decisive factor because his party runs in 15 of Germany’s 16 states, while the CSU runs only in Bavaria. The CDU's relatively weak local branch in...