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The party leader of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, will not run for chancellor in next year's elections, the party said in Berlin on Monday, according to Deutsche Welle.

Kramp-Karrenbauer surprised party leadership on Monday by announcing that she will step down from her position as the head of the party and would not run for chancellor. The jobs should be done by the same person, she is reported to have said.

She will organize the process of finding a new candidate by summertime and then step down from her leadership role, the party source said, adding that Merkel wants Kramp-Karrenbauer to remain Germany's defense minister.

The CDU will hold a press conference about the decision later on Monday.

The 57-year-old had been handpicked by Merkel to run as her successor in elections to be held in 2021 after being elected head of the CDU in 2018.

Since then, AKK, as she is commonly known, has struggled through a series of scandals that have sowed doubt about her ability to lead the country effectively.

Most recently, a vote in the state legislature in Thuringia last week saw the CDU and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party collectively backing a centrist candidate, a move that was widely perceived as breaking a political taboo against working with extremist parties in Germany.

She had been criticized for her management of the crisis and her inability to unite the party behind her. Her calls for fresh state elections in Thuringia were largely ignored by the party there.