BERLIN, Sept 26, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - Armin Laschet, the conservative candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor, said Sunday he still aimed to head Germany's next coalition government even as early estimates showed Merkel's CDU-CSU bloc trailing the Social Democrats.

  "We will do everything we can to build a government led by the (conservative) Union," Laschet told supporters in Berlin, adding that the vote outcome "is still totally unclear".