Berlin (dpa) – Germany’s outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel called for women to get more involved in politics, in comments published in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung’s weekend edition.

“We need to work on women having more confidence overall. Because even when there are women present, it’s not like they’re the ones wrangling over the party leadership position,” the Christian Democrat (CDU) politician said.

“I can only urge women to get involved. Only having men, that just doesn’t fit with the times anymore,” she said.

And if a political party wants to represent the people, they need to get closer to gender parity and have the will to do so, she said.

The CDU/CSU conservative bloc suffered a historic defeat in Germany’s federal election at the end of September.

Merkel, the country’s first female chancellor, did not run again in the vote and is due to step down from politics after nearly 16 years in charge of Germany.

Armin Laschet, who was the conservative candidate to replace Merkel in the election, has announced plans to oversee the CDU’s next steps before stepping down.

The CDU is now seeking to start fresh with a special party congress scheduled to elect the entire leadership.

A host of men have been floated as candidates to succeed Laschet as party leader, including Health Minister Jens Spahn, socially conservative former CDU Bundestag leader Friedrich Merz and foreign policy expert Norbert Roettgen.