A close aide to German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced that he plans to give up his post as the minister-president of Germany’s southeastern state of Bavaria in the next local election.

“I will not be standing in the next state elections,” 66-year-old Horst Seehofer told the German-language daily newspaper, Die Welt, on Wednesday.

He described the incumbent German chancellor as a “first-class” leader, expressing hope that the 60-year-old politician would remain as chancellor after the election in 2017.

Seehofer also denounced right-wing anti-Islam and anti-immigration movements, saying Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the so-called Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident (PEGIDA) have been much in the spotlight.

 “These phenomena are not so important,” he said.

The far-right PEGIDA movement has been organizing weekly Monday night rallies in Germany’s eastern city of Dresden since October 2014.

In response, numerous groups and individuals have staged protests against PEGIDA in cities across Germany.

On Tuesday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier slammed PEGIDA, saying the group “does damage to our country, as well as harming our image abroad.”

Thousands of people took to the streets in several cities across Germany on Monday to express opposition to the group.

Seehofer was elected as the Minister-President of Bavaria in October 2008. He was appointed Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection in Merkel’s cabinet and stayed in office from 2005 to 2008.

Bavarian Economy Minister Ilse Aigner or Finance Minister Markus Soeder have been viewed as the most likely replacements for Seehofer.

MP/HMV/SS