Reuters
BERLIN (Reuters) -Armin Laschet, leader of Germany's Christian Democrats (CDU), won the backing of senior party members at an internal meeting to run as the conservative candidate to succeed Angela Merkel at a September federal election, party sources said on Tuesday. With Chancellor Merkel stepping down after the election, pressure is mounting on the conservatives to agree on a candidate as its ratings wallow near a one-year low, hurt by the chaotic handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Laschet and Markus Soeder, who leads the CDU's Bavarian sister party CSU, have been at loggerheads over who is better placed to become the candidate to lead the conservative alliance, dubbed 'the Union', to an election victory.