Germans don’t elect the chancellor.
They vote for parliamentary representatives of several parties, who then elect the chancellor. Of course each parties chancellor candidate is announced before the election.
Problem is that ALL parties in the current German parliament are either pro-Merkel or even to the left of her.
Except some of the conservative Bavarian members of her party.
In the next election the right-wing AfD will take seats in parliament... hopefully a lot of seats. But they will remain in opposition, because no other party wants to have them in a coalition.
So it likely will again be Merkel or someone to the left of her, unless the AfD becomes surprisingly so strong as to carry a majority (perhaps with the Bavarian conservatives changing sides).
thanks for the German civics lesson/update. Certainly at some point the German people are going to tire of this muslim crap and just bypass their own government to fix the muslim problem. If a pending Trump Electoral victory is defeated, that may well happen in this country too.