Germany's CSU leader to give up party chair

Leader of Germany's Christian Social Union (CSU) Horst Seehofer, who is also German Interior Minister, is to give up party leadership, news agency DPA reported on Sunday.

The formal declaration will be made during the coming week and a new chairman will be elected in a special party meeting in 2019.

The decision was made by Seehofer after a severe state election setback less than a month ago when CSU lost its absolute majority in Germany's southern state of Bavaria.

Seehofer is constantly under pressure since party members were unsatisfied by the result and on Sunday evening he said he would clear way for a successor, DPA report said, citing a source close to him.

Local media speculated that by far the most promising candidate for CSU's top job CSU would be Bavarian Minister President Markus Soder.

CSU is the Bavarian sister party of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party (CDU), and is a member of the governing coalition government together with CDU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

The CDU and SPD had also encountered a major failure two weeks ago in the state election in the western state of Hesse, stylizing a nationwide dissatisfaction with the governing coalition.

All three parties are undergoing a shake-up in their personnel. CDU leader Merkel already declared her retreat as chairwoman after a party congress in December and the SPD head Andrea Nahles is facing close scrutiny.

Some analysts said such shuffle could send shock waves to the already shaky German government.