(Reuters) --- Armin Laschet, leader of Germany's Christian Democrats (CDU), won the backing of senior party members at an internal meeting to run as the conservative candidate to succeed Angela Merkel in a federal election in September, party sources said on Tuesday.
That brings him a step closer to being named candidate for the conservative bloc, a role for which he has been vying with Markus Soeder, leader of the CDU's smaller Bavarian sister party CSU.
With Merkel stepping down after the election, pressure has been mounting on the bloc to agree on a candidate as its ratings wallow near a one-year low, hurt by what is widely seen as the government's chaotic handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The conservatives' leadership rift has threatened their efforts to extend their 16-year-old hold on power without Merkel, who has won them four consecutive victories in Germany, which has Europe's largest economy.
A Forsa poll last week put support for the conservative alliance at 27%, ahead of the opposition Greens on 23%.
By backing Laschet, 60, senior figures in the CDU prioritised the party's ascendancy in the conservative bloc over the prospect of being led to victory by Soeder. The CSU leader is more popular than Laschet and, at 54, he would be well placed to go on and dominate the alliance for years.
Laschet is widely seen as a candidate who would continue Merkel's legacy, though he has clashed with her over coronavirus restrictions. Soeder has sided with Merkel during the pandemic.
After more than six hours of debate going into the night, Laschet garnered the votes of 31 of 46 members of the CDU's federal executive committee, representing a majority of 77.5%, party sources said.
Soeder, who did not participate in the virtual CDU meeting, won the backing of nine members and six others abstained, according to the participants.
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Soeder said on Monday he would accept a "clear decision" by the CDU leadership and step aside, and two CSU sources told Reuters he was expected to accept the decision. He was due to speak in Munich at noon (1000 GMT).
Ralph Brinkhaus, the head of the parliamentary conservative bloc, was due to issue a statement at 1230 GMT.
The bloc is likely to make a joint decision on a candidate later on Tuesday, Thorsten Frei, deputy leader of the CDU/CSU group in parliament, told broadcaster Deutschlandfunk.
Polls show Soeder is far more popular than Laschet, which had unnerved some members of his own CDU party.
An ARD Deutschlandtrend survey on Friday found 72% of conservative voters considered Soeder better suited to become chancellor. Only 17% of conservatives viewed Laschet as the more suitable candidate, the survey by the Infratest Dimap polling institute found.
The Greens, with no internal wrangling, named their co-leader Annalena Baerbock on Monday as their first candidate for chancellor in the party's 40-year history.
Laschet has said one of the policy priorities as chancellor should be to preserve European unity and steer the European Union through the coronavirus crisis.
