Germany: At a CDU rally in Mr Laschet’s hometown of Aachen, Mrs Merkel praised him as a “bridge-builder who will get people on board”.
The election is too close to call, with polls putting the center-right almost neck and neck with the center-left SPD.
Mrs Merkel has dominated German politics for 16 years as chancellor.
Mrs Merkel had vowed to avoid the campaign for Sunday’s election, but her CDU-CSU alliance has lost what was a comfortable lead in the polls and is now trailing just behind the SPD (Social Democrats) – the junior partners in the current coalition government.
It’s impossible to predict whether Angela Merkel’s successor will be the conservative Armin Laschet or the center-left Olaf Scholz.
Four months ago the Greens were leading the polls. Then the conservatives pulled ahead. Today the center-left are favourites but their lead has almost disappeared.
Party loyalties have broken down and record numbers are undecided, in some polls around 40%.
A safer bet is that Mr Scholz or Mr Laschet could end up leading a three-way coalition with the Greens and the business-friendly, liberal FDP. The two kingmaker parties are traditionally suspicious of each other: high-taxing moralising killjoys versus car-loving neoliberal climate-killers are the cliches.
But they are also surprisingly similar, with young, energetic, socially liberal MPs pushing to modernise Germany – and crucially they are keen for power.
