Merkel is supplanted by Spahn as Germany’s most popular policy

Photographer: Michele Tantussi / AFP / Getty Images

German Health Minister Jens Spahn replaced Chancellor Angela Merkel as the country’s most popular policy, a poll showed on Sunday, highlighting his potential as the future leader of Europe’s largest economy.

Spahn, 40, has long been considered a rising star in Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, and is widely perceived to have made an important contribution to Germany’s relatively successful treatment of the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the Kantar survey in the Bild newspaper, 52% of respondents said Spahn should play an important role in German politics in 2021, up from 28% at the end of 2019. Merkel’s approval rating was 51%, 11 percentage points above the previous year.

“Spahn is clearly the winner of the year,” said Torsten Schneider-Haase, from Bild, from Kantar. “From the people’s point of view, he is a positive figure in coronavirus policy.”

Merkel is stepping down after the next election 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 supported Armin Laschet, the prime minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, while Friedrich Merz, a longtime rival of Merkel, and Norbert Roettgen, a former environment minister, are also running.

The winner is likely to 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 invited to intervene.

Soeder is the third most popular politician with 50%, the Kantar poll showed. Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the candidate for chancellor of the Social Democrats, came in fourth with 47%, Merz had 37% in sixth, Laschet 31% in eighth and Roettgen 29% in ninth.

Although Spahn gave his support to Laschet, there is an external chance that he will be chosen to run as a conservative candidate for chancellor, if he is seen as having the best chance of winning the election.