When Germans go to vote in one week's time, after a polarising election campaign overshadowed by a far-right surge, they are expected to hand the chancellery to conservative Friedrich Merz.

If the polls are right, it will fall to the Christian Democrat to deal with a storm of challenges roiling Germany -- economic stagnation, a society divided over immigration and a hostile Team Trump.

An election win on February 23 would only be the first step towards a new government. Merz would then need to find one or more coalition partners in a process that, even in less turbulent and toxic times, takes weeks if not months.

Merz's opposition CDU/CSU block has long polled at around 30 percent -- almost double the support for either the Social Democrats (SPD) of Chancellor Olaf Scholz or his coalition allies the Greens.

If Merz triumphs, the former investment lawyer has vowed a strong shift to the right that would end two decades of centrist governance under Scholz and his predecessor Angela Merkel, Merz's longtime party rival.

Merz, 69, argues that only by answering public fears over irregular immigration can centrist parties halt the rise of right-wing extremists that has........

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