(Bloomberg) — Sign up here to receive the Davos Diary, a special daily newsletter that will run from Jan. 20-24.Germany’s Christian Democrats want to assemble their team to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel by the end of this year, the party’s chairwoman said in an interview.Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who is also Merkel’s defense minister, said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that now isn’t the time for a cabinet reshuffle as proposed by a party ally earlier in the month.“For 2021, the CDU needs a new team for the future, with new faces, and we’ll put that in place this year. For me, that’s a more important perspective than a short-term change.”Kramp-Karrenbauer, 57, has had a rocky path since she replaced Merkel as leader of the Christian Democratic Union, or CDU. She stumbled in an attempt to choreograph an earlier change in government last year, as Merkel — who remains Germany’s most popular politician — held steady in her position as head of government.Even after she fended off a leadership challenge in the CDU late last year, Kramp-Karrenbauer remains under scrutiny from the party’s conservative and business wings.Read More:Merkel Party Leader’s Ultimatum Contains Rebels, For NowMerkel Fends Off Another Hustle From Upstart Tipped for Her JobGermany Would Contribute to Any Libya Peace Force, CDU Head SaysIf Merkel Wants to Fix the German Economy, She Needs to Hurry UpAKK, as she’s known, will have to reinforce her position within the CDU if she wants to become the party’s candidate for the chancellorship in the next election, due in 2021 at the latest. Merkel has said she won’t run for a fifth term.One rival that has emerged is Bavarian Premier Markus Soeder, the chairman of the CDU’s sister party, the Christian Social Union. He made the call for Merkel to reshuffle the cabinet, an objective he hopes to deliver by the summer.While AKK initially said the idea could be discussed, on Thursday she pushed back on the proposal.“First we have to ensure that this government that we have now works as well and dynamically as possible. There’s room for improvement, we can do even better.”To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net;Chad Thomas in Davos, Switzerland at cthomas16@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Raymond Colitt, Andrew BlackmanFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.