German right to put up hardliner

The moderate leader of the largest conservative party in Germany stepped aside last night to make way for a hardline rightwinger to challenge Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in the September general election.

Angela Merkel, the first easterner and woman to lead the right in Germany, broke the news at a Magdeburg press conference during which she appeared close to tears. The decision was announced at an agonising moment for Ms Merkel, just as a raft of opinion polls detected a surge in support for the right that could win them power in the autumn.

She pledged to throw the full weight of her Christian Democratic Union party behind Edmund Stoiber, the leader of its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), "so that the chances for victory we have at the start of this year also become a reality".

Backing for the governing centre-left coalition has fallen recently, largely because of rising unemployment. But the untelegenic and seemingly indecisive Ms Merkel had already convinced most senior party members that she was not the person to bring down the government.

Under rules agreed by the German right, the head of the CSU can be given a shot at the chancellorship. As the day for a decision loomed, it became clear that the moderate Ms Merkel was best liked by those who would never dream of voting for the conservatives.

The first and last time the CSU put up a challenger was in 1980, when Franz Josef Strauss lost calamitously.

Like Mr Strauss, 60-year-old Mr Stoiber is an uncompromising rightwinger. He criticised the EU for its dismay at the inclusion of Jörg Haider's far-right party in the government of Austria.

But Mr Stoiber, head of the Bavarian state administration since 1993, has played a leading role in the modernisation of its economy - the so-called "laptops and lederhosen" revolution.

His record in office makes him an enticing prospect - with the chancellor under fire for his failure to liberalise the German economy.