*

Struggle to get fair regional and gender representation in

next

coalition cabinet

*

No women candidates for senior ministries mentioned,

backsliding

from previous government

*

Eastern Germany underrepresented, amidst rising popularity

of

far right anchored in region

BERLIN, April 10 (Reuters) - Germany faces the conundrum

of choosing ministers for its next government without flouting

equality sensitivities: the main candidates are from only two

regions, and none of the names circulating so far is a woman.

Announcing the coalition deal between his conservatives and

the Social Democrats this week, chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich

Merz said that while the responsibilities and parties in charge

of each ministry had been agreed, nothing would be finalised

until the SPD has ratified the accord at the end of April.

In Germany, a decentralised country with powerful regional

party organisations in each of 16 federal states, it is hard to

keep everyone happy. It's not for want of experienced hands.

For example, the Christian Democrats have Jens Spahn, the

health minister who steered Germany through the COVID-19

pandemic, and Armin Laschet, who was premier of a state larger

than the Netherlands, or former party chief Carsten Linnemann.

But all, like Merz, are from North Rhine-Westphalia, leaving

too few slots for people from party branches in other states.

The SPD has the same problem with Lower Saxony, home to

Volkswagen and a party stronghold since former Chancellor

Gerhard Schroeder ran it. Boris Pistorius, the popular defence

minister, Hubertus Heil, the long-serving labour minister, and

SPD leader Lars Klingbeil are all from there.

Conspicuously absent from all lists leaked to the media so

far is a woman in any of the most senior ministries - foreign

affairs, finance, economics and interior. Olaf Scholz's outgoing

government had women in two of the four posts.

Backsliding on that would be a conspicuous failure,

political analysts say, especially as the number of women in the

newly elected parliament has also fallen, back down below a

third of the assembly.

For Merz, under scrutiny for remarks he has made about women

in the past, the matter is delicate. Last year, he spoke against

formal quotas in government. Scholz, the outgoing chancellor,

insisted on parity between men and women.

"We don't do women any favours if we do that (quotas)," Merz

said, describing scenarios where a less capable woman was

appointed purely because of her gender.

"Who gets each ministry is decided not by the chancellor or

the coalition, but each party on its own," said Kai Arzheimer, a

professor at Mainz University. "And there, matters like the

SPD's Lower Saxony connection can play a role."

Other regional parties are also loath to see the Lower

Saxony clique being rewarded after it led the SPD to its

worst-ever result in the February 23 election.

Ideally, some senior ministers would come from the former

East Germany, a region that is still underrepresented 35 years

after reunification.

That matters all the more at a time when the far-right AfD

party, which is anchored in eastern Germany, is leading in the

country's polls for the first time since World War Two.