Angela Merkel has admitted that her party could finally lose power after she steps down later this month, with opinion polls showing its support has crumbled.
The German Chancellor said Thursday that her party is fighting and was always aware that it wouldn't 'automatically' hold on to Germany's top job after her 16 years in power, but downplayed the alarming poll ratings as the country's election nears.
Recent polls have shown Merkel's Union bloc under would-be successor Armin Laschet in second place behind the center-left Social Democrats, with very low support of around 20 percent.
Laschet, the chancellor candidate for Merkel's conservative CDU/CSU bloc, was long the favourite to be the next German leader, but his ratings have plummeted following a series of missteps.
The party is running short of time to turn things around before the September 26 parliamentary election.
Angela Merkel (pictured on Thursday) has admitted that her party could finally lose power after she steps down later this month, with opinion polls showing its support has crumbled
Merkel has largely stayed out of the campaign, though she has made a number of interventions lately - most recently, assailing the possibility of a future left-wing administration and trying to boost Laschet in an unusually partisan speech to parliament on Tuesday.
Asked at a news conference on Thursday whether she was worried about her record being sullied by her party losing the chancellery, Merkel replied that 'we are in the middle of the election campaign and I can see that (it is) really fighting.'
She added that what happens on election day counts, so she won't speculate.
'It was clear to everyone in the CDU and CSU that we wouldn't get into the
