Two conservatives compete to replace Angela Merkel

BERLIN: Germany's conservative parties - the CDU and CSU - are gearing up to pick their joint candidate for chancellor in the September federal election.

New polls Friday bolstered Bavarian Governor Markus Soeder's bid to be the candidate of Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right bloc in fall elections, showing a wide margin of popular support for him over Armin Laschet, the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Laschet is the leader of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, and has rallied the party's leadership behind his bid to run as chancellor.

Soeder, the leader of the CDU's smaller Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, has emphasized his superior poll ratings, and two new surveys further boost that argument.

One showed 44% of Germans, and 72% of union-bloc voters, preferred Soeder to Laschet.

By contrast, 15% of Germans and 17% of union-bloc voters preferred Laschet.

A INSA poll done this week for Bild newspaper and released Friday indicated that with Laschet as the candidate the union bloc was polling at 27% support, one point below its current ratings as measured by the agency, while with Soeder it sat at 38% support.

INSA's poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Laschet has dismissed the importance of the polls, noting that the elections are months away and that he has overcome poor numbers in state races in the past.

After a meeting on Tuesday of the two parties' joint parliamentary group in Berlin, both men emerged to say that the talks were productive and that they hoped to have a decision by the end of the week.

Germany's parliamentary election on Sept. 26 will determine who succeeds Merkel, who isn't seeking a fifth term after nearly 16 years in power.