BERLIN, March 8 (Xinhua) -- Several senior politicians of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) will not support Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, as the next German Chancellor if Angela Merkel was to resign before the end of the legislative period in 2021, the magazine Spiegel reported on Friday.
Kramp-Karrenbauer, the successor of Merkel as the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), is one of the most promising candidates to become the next German Chancellor in the governmental elections in 2021.
"If Merkel was to try to hand over her chancellorship to Kramp-Karrenbauer, there would be new elections immediately," Johannes Kahrs, chairman of the so-called Seeheimer Kreis, a conservative group in the SPD, told Spiegel. The SPD jointly forms the current German government alongside the Christian Union CDU/CSU.
"Nobody in the SPD will participate in that," said Kahrs while adding that "the CDU had a choice between three possible chairmen, and they drew the blank."
Following Merkel's resignation as leader of the CDU party in 2018, CDU politicians Kramp-Karrenbauer, Friedrich Merz and Jens Spahn ran for a closely-watched election as the new chairman of the party, which Kramp-Karrenbauer narrowly won ahead of Merz.
Merkel stated after the election of Kramp-Karrenbauer that she intended to remain Chancellor until the end of her office term in 2021.
Kevin Kuehnert, chairman of the youth organization of the SPD, told Spiegel that if Merkel was to resign as German chancellor, "it would be the termination of this government's business foundation. We could definitely not go along with such a transfer of power."
"We have signed a coalition agreement with Merkel as Chancellor," added Sebastian Hartmann, chairman of SPD's largest regional association in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The SPD "will certainly do nothing to pacify the leadership crisis of the CDU. We will certainly not help it with any renewal."
If Merkel was to resign before the end of her term in office in 2021, a parliamentary election of a new German chancellor would be carried out. All parties currently represented in the German parliament would then vote on the new Chancellor of the German government.
