BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th August, 2021) Bavaria's premier, Markus Soeder, on Thursday threw his weight behind Armin Laschet after his former rival in the contest for conservative nomination for chancellorship saw his personal ratings drop.
Soeder, the leader of Bavaria's CSU party that together with Laschet's CDU makes up the ruling center-right bloc, was passed over in spring to allow the latter to run for Angela Merkel's job against Social Democrats' Olaf Scholz.
A survey published Wednesday by the Augsburger Allgemeine daily showed that 70% of conservative voters wanted more popular Soeder to replace Laschet as the union's candidate in this September's general election.
Soeder rejected the calls to challenge the fellow state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, telling a press conference in Munich, "I believe that he will be a strong candidate. He has my 100% support and the support of the CSU."
"The ballots have been printed and campaign posters pasted, and the only candidate's name is Armin Laschet," he said.
Soeder claimed that a "shift to the left" in the German Federal government would bring about tax hikes, economic downturn and insecurity. Social Democrats briefly outran conservatives in Sunday surveys and were polling at 23%, together with Merkel's bloc, in a Kantar poll on Thursday.
