(ANSA-AFP) - BERLIN, FEB 21 - When Germans vote on Sunday, conservative Friedrich Merz is the strong favourite to become the next chancellor after a bitterly fought campaign roiled by the rise of the AfD, a far-right party vocally backed by Team Trump. Barring any last-minute upset, the CDU/CSU bloc of Merz is leading the polls and on course to defeat Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) to make the 69-year-old former investment lawyer the next leader of Europe's biggest economy. His victory would cap months of political turmoil since Scholz's troubled three-party coalition imploded in November -- but grave challenges loom for Merz and his pledge to fix Germany's ailing economy and rebuild its international stature. The election comes at a time of rapid and unsettling change for Germany and Europe, as US President Donald Trump has reached out over their heads to Russia to settle the Ukraine war, sparking grave fears for future transatlantic ties. Whatever divides them, Merz, Scholz and other German politicians share a sense of alarm over what lies ahead for Germany, which built its post-war democracy under American tutelage and grew prosperous under the US-led NATO umbrella. The one party to relish the disruption has been the far-right and Moscow-friendly Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has received strong support from Trump's inner circle, including Vice President JD Vance and tech billionaire Elon Musk. Like Trump, it has strongly opposed irregular immigration, and has capitalised on fears stoked by a string of deadly knife and car-ramming attacks blamed on migrants and asylum seekers. (ANSA-AFP).