Leaders of Germany's scandal-hit opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) unanimously backed Dr Angela Merkel (45) as their candidate for party president yesterday.
Following the decision at a meeting in Berlin of the CDU executive, the CDU secretary general is certain to be elected at a party congress in Essen on April 9th to 11th to replace Dr Wolfgang Schauble.
Dr Merkel will be the CDU's first woman leader, as well as the first from the country's formerly communist east. Dr Schauble is standing down after his credibility was badly damaged in the scandal over illegal secret party funds during the leadership of ex-chancellor Dr Helmut Kohl.
Dr Merkel said she would gladly take over the top post, and wanted to "do the job well".
She also expressed her admiration for a party with "so many different currents and roots" and a long history.
The CDU is the party which did the most for German reunification, and it was an "unbelievable opportunity" that she could now stand for the party post with such unanimous support, she told a news conference.
"That is a living example of German unity which a short time ago I could never have imagined," Dr Merkel said, clearly pleased by her nomination but appearing calm as she fielded reporters' questions.
She sidestepped a question about the possibility of Mr Edmund Stoiber, the right-wing premier of Bavaria, being a future joint candidate of the CDU and the Bavarian-based Christian Social Union for the post of German chancellor.
She also rejected labels of right or left for the CDU. She insisted the party was a broad "people's party". Mr Stoiber had earlier been opposed to Dr Merkel, believing that the pastor's daughter was too left-wing.
On the policy front, Dr Merkel stressed her attachment to the "social market economy" to which the party founded by Konrad Adenauer has always declared allegiance.
She was a spokeswoman for the last East German government when Dr Kohl offered her a seat in his unified cabinet. She is married, for a second time, and has no children.