Last Sunday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner, who immediately withdrew his FDP from the ruling coalition and forced snap elections.
Now Lindner says that it is already clear who will be chancellor after the election.
"I believe that the race for the position of chancellor is in reality already over," the Liberal leader told Zidejce Zeitung.
According to him, it is "bordering on certain" that it will be the leader of the Christian Democratic CDU, Friedrich Mertz.
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"The key question, however, is who will Chancellor Mertz govern the country with? With the Social Democrats, with the Greens? These are all traffic lights," Lindner said.
Soltz's coalition got the colloquial name traffic light after the colors of the participating parties: Red for Soltz's Social Democrats (SPD), green for the environmental party and yellow for Lindner's FDP.
The former finance minister described the CDU as a "political chameleon," because it "always adopts the color of the coalition partner."
He further insists that Germany needs a significant change in economic policy. Lindner advocates strict austerity and opposes borrowing to finance current budgetary needs.
He reiterated that he is convinced that the FDP will win at least 10 percent of the vote in the third consecutive election, although his party is currently rated at between three and five percent of support in polls - so it is struggling to cross the electoral threshold and directly win seats in the new Bundestag.
Scholz and Mertz agreed that special elections would be held on February 23.
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