Germany’s surging Greens step up election race to succeed Merkel

Robert Habeck or Annalena Baerbock will be named as party's candidate for chancellorship

Five months before national elections, a Green party that once styled itself as the rebel of German politics is finding itself in an unusually respectable position.

The party's standing in the polls - in second place at 21-23% of the vote - means it will on Monday, for the first time in its 41-year history, nominate a candidate for chancellor. Furthermore, that candidate will have a realistic chance of filling the top job in German politics by the end of the year.