Conservative leader Friedrich Merz won the German election Sunday and is on track to take the reins of the EU’s largest economy. teleSUR
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00:00Let's now take a closer look at the CDU candidate that led the election and now hopes to become
00:05Germany's Chancellor.
00:07Friedrich Merz is a 69-year-old Christian Democrat who represents Germany's richest
00:11and most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, where he was born.
00:17To this moment, he has never held a government role, despite having aspired to the highest
00:21office in Berlin for over 20 years.
00:23Longtime rival of Centris, former Chancellor Angela Merkel, within the CDU party, Merz
00:28was twice rejected as her successor as party leader, both in 2018 and 2021.
00:35Merz left politics for a lucrative second career at the world's largest asset management
00:39corporation, BlackRock, in 2016 and also served on many corporate boards, which made him a
00:47millionaire.
00:48Regarding future policy, he has pledged to scrap unemployment benefits and easier citizenship
00:54and to introduce tougher border controls.
00:57Despite pledging to kill off the far-right AfD, he has already sought its support on
01:02migration clampdown.