Uwe Schummer, the head of the Union Workers’ Group in the Bundestag said that Mrs Merkel should step aside and hand power to her deputy Annegret Kramp-Kareenbauer.
Mr Schummer said Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer, the current Secretary General of the Christian Democratic Union party wild bring “optimism” in contrast to Mrs Merkel, who has just begun her fourth term in power.
He told Epoch Times: “Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer brings a spirit of optimism to the CDU, as Heiner Geissler once did.”
He added: “Angela Merkel will certainly fulfil her duty “in her Prussian way” in the dual function of chancellor and party leader.
Mrs Merkel only just secured her fourth term as German Chancellor after the governing fragile coalition took almost six months to be formed.
Today, the Chancellor gave her first address in the Bundestag since beginning her fourth term, aimed at uniting Germany’s fractious political scene.
Mrs Merkel used her speech to defend her 2015 decision to welcome more than one million migrants into Germany but said there could be no repeat of the open door policy.
She acknowledged that society had grown more divided and angst-ridden following her decision.
Mrs Merkel said: “Something has changed in our country. Although our country is doing well, although our economy is doing its best since reunification, many people are worried about the future.”
Such angst, she conceded, hurt both her conservatives and their Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners in last September’s national election, when the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged into parliament for the first time.
The AfD now leads the opposition, with the two groups in parliament – Merkel’s conservative bloc and the SPD – allied in their ruling “grand coalition”.
Mrs Merkel said: “At the end of this legislative period, I would like people to conclude that our society has become more humane, that divisions and polarisation were reduced and perhaps even overcome, and social cohesion increased.”
The leader, who has been Chancellor since 2005, also said she would turn her attention to matters such as French President Emmanuel Macron’s months-old proposals for ambitious reforms of the EU and US President Donald Trump’s threats of trade tariffs against the EU and even taxes on German carmakers.
(Additional reporting by Monika Pallenberg.)