This is a senior non-resident scholar at Carnegie Europe. She's in

the world. I'm John Bachelors with Judy Dempsey. My colleague, she's a senior

non-resident scholar at Carnegie Europe. She's in Berlin and we've been

looking at the state election of Brandenburg because it is right now the

big story in Germany. The vote is on Sunday and the turnout looks to be excited.

The choices between the small parties, the splinter parties, the populist parties, after a the Democrats and the Christian Democratic Union.

The CDU was Angla Merkel's party and she led it for 16 years.

I learned, however, there's a new name to pay attention to an attorney who was in

the Bundestag and then turned to the private world as an attorney.

He's the son of a judge and he's married to a judge.

His name is Merts.

He's been in the news and I didn't know much about him until I read a profile at Reuters.

Judy, what do we need to know about the leader of the CDU?

Who is he?

Where does he come from?

What place does he hold in Germany?

He's quite a controversial character and he and Angela Merkel just never got on. He always wants to be Chancellor.

He always wants to move Angela Merkel aside. He never wanted her to be General Secretary of

the party or Chancellor and he wanted at the same time if he couldn't be Chancellor to be Finance Minister.

Well, he didn't get the jobs that he wanted and Merkel saw him off.

Indeed, Merkel was very, very adept at seeing off opponents in people who would make her life difficult.

So he went into the political wilderness, for want of a better term, went into business,

...