Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer was elected on Friday (7 December) by Germany's largest ruling party, the Christian Democrats (CDU) to lead the party and thus to likely be the next chancellor of Europe's economic and political powerhouse in a post-Merkel era.
Kramp-Karrenbauer, known as AKK, won in a tight race with 517 votes, against 482 votes for Friedrich Merz, a corporate lawyer, whose election would have meant a sharp right turn for the CDU.
The 56-year old AKK, on the other han...
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Eszter Zalan is a Hungarian journalist who worked for Brussels-based news portal EUobserver specialising in European politics, focusing on populism and Brexit.