BERLIN (AFP) — A longtime rival of German Chancellor Angela Merkel exited the political stage at the weekend, leaving her more powerful than ever but faced with mounting tensions in her ruling coalition.
Edmund Stoiber stood down as Bavarian state premier and head of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the regional sister party of Merkel's conservatives and a member of her government, after 14 years at the helm.
Stoiber, 66, who unsuccessfully ran for election as federal chancellor in 2002 after beating Merkel for the conservatives' nomination, will now work in Brussels as head of a group charged with cutting European Union red tape.
The CSU elected regional economy minister Erwin Huber to succeed him as party leader while Guenther Beckstein, Bavaria's interior minister, was tapped as state premier.
Dividing the jobs between two people will cut any potential rivals to Merkel from Bavaria, an economic powerhouse of 12.5 million people, down to size.
Now halfway through her first term, Merkel is flying high in the polls and her Christian Union bloc would decisively beat their coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), in a general election.
Although officially in the same camp, the aloof and occasionally tongue-tied Stoiber was often a thorn in Merkel's side.
He pledged his support during her 2005 election campaign but his frequent gaffes and sniping at her political views undercut her efforts to project strong leadership skills.
Stoiber then agreed to take a cabinet seat in Berlin only to pull out at the last minute, saying his place was in Bavaria.
His CSU gave him an affectionate send-off at a party congress, but observers noted that many conservatives, not least Merkel, were pleased to see him go.
"It was not always easy with you," Merkel acknowledged in a witty sendoff speech for Stoiber that delegates greeted with applause and laughter.
Observers said the cheer over the end of the Stoiber era was palpable.
"Edmund Stoiber is surrounded by crocodile tears," the daily Thueringer Allgemeine wrote.
"Angela Merkel is breathing a deep sign of relief. She has no reason to fear Beckstein and Huber."
Yet the road ahead for Merkel, who was recently crowned the most powerful woman in the world for the second year running by Forbes magazine, looks rocky with squabbling within her own Christian Union alliance as well as a deepening rift in her power-sharing government.
Agriculture Minister Horst Seehofer of the CSU has undone himself politically by having a baby with his mistress while deciding to stay with his wife.
The move cost him a chance at the party leadership and the Handelsblatt newspaper predicted his defeat to Huber would start a round of musical chairs in Merkel's cabinet with Seehofer ceding his ministry and new players moving in.
The conservatives are also at odds over a proposal by Family Affairs Minister Ursula von der Leyen to create more creches for the children of working parents.
The CSU has said such a move is "unacceptable" without a parallel stipend for stay-at-home parents -- a proposal Von der Leyen has dismissed as a budget-buster that would undermine the integration of immigrant children.
Meanwhile, clashes have broken out between left and right, driving the government to a standstill on reforms.
The Social Democrats have seized on the creation of a national minimum wage as a viable election issue, a proposal strictly opposed by conservatives who say it would send jobs abroad or into the black market.
Another divisive issue is security.
Hardline Interior Minster Wolfgang Schaeuble raised hackles by calling for surveillance of terror suspects' computers. And leftists accused him of fear-mongering with warnings about the possibility of an attack with a radioactive "dirty bomb".
Yet voters appear unswayed by the criticism. The conservatives are currently scoring 40 percent support, far ahead of the Social Democrats which are trailing at just 26 percent.
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