Jens Spahn
Photographer: Michele Tantussi / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Michele Tantussi / AFP / Getty Images
German Health Minister Jens Spahn has taken over from Chancellor Angela Merkel as the nation’s most popular politician, a poll showed on Sunday highlighting her potential as a future leader in Europe’s largest economy.
Spahn, 40, has long been considered a rising star in Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, and is widely perceived as a key contribution to Germany’s relatively successful management of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to Kantar’s poll in the Bild newspaper, 52% of respondents said Spahn should play a major role in German politics by 2021, up from 28% by the end of 2019. Merkel’s approval rating was from 51%, an increase of 11 percentage points over last year.
“Spahn is clearly the winner of the year,” Bild said, citing Kantar’s Torsten Schneider-Haase. “From the people’s point of view, it’s reducing a positive figure in coronavirus policy.”
Merkel resigns after the next elections scheduled for September 2021 after more than a decade and a half in power. The CDU will elect a new leader and likely candidate for chancellor at a virtual congress next month.
Spahn has backed Armin Laschet, the prime minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, while Friedrich Merz, a longtime rival of Merkel, and Norbert Roettgen, a former environment minister, are also running.
The winner will likely be the Conservative bloc’s candidate to succeed Merkel next year, although Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soeder, head of the CDU’s sister party in the southern state, may be asked.
Soeder is the third most popular politician by 50%, Kantar’s poll showed. Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat chancellor candidate, was fourth at 47%, Merz got 37% in sixth place, Laschet 31% in eighth place and Roettgen 29% in ninth place.
Although Spahn has given his support behind Laschet, there is an external possibility that he could be approved to run as a Conservative candidate for chancellery if he is seen as the best chance of winning the election.