Merkel's coalition at odds over presidential successor

Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition squabbled Sunday over nominations for Germany's presidency, two days after the sudden resignation of Christian Wulff in a corruption scandal. Sources told dpa that the Free Democratic Party (FDP), the junior coalition partner, proposed a non-politician, Joachim Gauck, 70, but Merkel's Christian Democrats, rejected him.
Merkel has until March 18 to hold a constitutional assembly to appoint a replacement for Wulff, who stepped down Friday after prosecutors said they plan to investigate whether he accepted favours from a businessman while a state politician.
The chancellor has indicated she wants to nominate someone with bipartisan support to the mainly ceremonial head-of-state role.
The opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD) has urged her to appoint Gauck, former custodian of the records left behind by the East German communist stasi police, who lost to Wulff on a third ballot the last time Germany appointed a president in 2010.
Merkel chaired coalition talks for a second day at her Berlin office with the leaders of the FDP and the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) to sift through potential candidates.
The rift over Gauck with the FDP, which is led by Economics Minister Philipp Roesler, suggests latent tensions in the Merkel coalition were coming back to the surface.
Insiders told dpa said the FDP national executive had unanimously backed Gauck, a former Lutheran pastor, as a consensus candidate, but Christian Democratic leaders said he was unacceptable in their camp.
The SPD warned Merkel not to commit to a candidate before consulting the opposition.
SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel told a newspaper, the Bild am Sonntag, "We won't cooperate if we have a candidate set before us on a basis of take it or leave it," he said.
"If they don't conduct sincere talks with us and the other parties in parliament, we would be obliged to make a counter proposal. I hope it doesn't come to that."
The opposition Green party has suggested it is time for Germany to have its first female president.
Bild am Sonntag said a survey found 54 per cent of Germans favoured Gauck for presidency. Germany's acting head of state after Wulff's departure is Bavarian Premier and CSU leader Horst Seehofer.
Wulff left in disgrace after two months of allegations of cosy relationships with wealthy friends and an angry voicemail to the editor of Bild, the country's biggest newspaper. The prosecutors focussed on one allegation, that he may have accepted a free holiday at a beach resort in 2007.
German presidents are elected by a specially convened bodyof the lower house of parliament, or Bundestag, plus representatives selected by the country's 16 states.
Most Germans want Wulff, 52, to give up his pension, according to an opinion poll in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
It said 78 per cent of respondents wanted Wulff to be denied the 199,000 euros (262,000 dollars) per year due to a former president, and quoted another former president, Walter Scheel, urging Wulff to sacrifice it.