political correspondent melinda crane she's on the story for us tonight good evening to you melinda friedrich meds and uncle america what we know they have rarely seen things. if he were to become leader of the party might she rethink her current plan to remain chancellor until next year. that could well happen it's not only her plan of course she is at the head of a government whose official term goes until 2021 and she has said she would stay out that term but the fact is that these 2 fried fish mats and america they have a long history their rivalry goes way back and in fact she proved such a nemesis for him that he wound up leaving politics altogether for many years he is distinctly to the right of chancellor merkel if you remember he was the author of that term lead in culture to describe the idea that germany needed to return to a stronger sense of its national identity all of that could make them very easy bedfellows so to speak so many people do speculate that if he were to become the head of the party that she might step down earlier which in fact would then prompt new elections beca

we can go latest from database chief political correspondent belinda crime welcome melinda friedrich interesting character he going to medical have rarely seen eye to eye so if he became leader might she rethink her current strategy of staying on until next year. quite possible it's not only her strategy she is the elected chancellor and her term expires with the next election in the autumn of 2021 but many observers say that because uncle americal is in a way a nemesis for math he actually stepped down from politics years ago because of a power struggle with her which he had lost because they simply see things very very differently that if they were to try to work side by side with him as party leader and she serving out her term as chancellor it could become quite quite difficult which is why some people think that if he does in fact become the party leader we could very well see her step down early and new elections following and so if again we're in the early stages but if he became party leader the presumably would mean that he would then succeed angela merkel and try to run for