(Bloomberg) -- The two candidates battling to lead Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc into September’s election are holding secret face-to-face talks at an unknown location in Germany in an effort to settle the contest by Saturday, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting.

Party officials have largely written off the chances of reaching a decision between Armin Laschet, who leads Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, and Markus Soeder, who runs the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, before their self-imposed Friday deadline but they have been asked to remain on standby over the weekend. Both camps insist that their candidate has no plans to back down. The people asked not to be identified speaking about internal deliberations

Despite the increasingly acrimonious fight to follow Merkel at the top of the conservative ticket, both sides are keen to maintain the impression that the nomination has been decided in a more or less orderly fashion, and that means reaching a decision by Saturday.

On Sunday, they would be clashing with a national ceremony to commemorate Germany’s coronavirus victims and on Monday the Greens will announce their candidate at a long-planned event. If it’s undecided by Tuesday, it’s likely to go to a vote of the two parties’ federal lawmakers, who are scheduled to meet at the Bundestag.

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