The confusion surrounding the resignation of German Economy Minister Michael Glos has highlighted weaknesses and divisions in Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives seven months before a general election, say media commentators.

Michael Glos never wanted the job as German economy minister and made no secret of that fact from the start in November 2005, when he was browbeat into taking the position after Bavaria's then-governor Edmund Stoiber decided he didn't want to do it himself.

 Some say Merkel's leadership was lacking in the recent cabinet confusion. Glos never really came to grips with the job and his frustration at being repeatedly ignored by Chancellor Angela Merkel intensified when the financial crisis engulfed the German banking system late last year. She worked out all the rescue and stimulus packages with Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück rather than with him.

Glos, a prominent member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrats, also didn't get on with the imperious new leader of the CSU, Horst Seehofer, who has been trying to revamp the CSU following its poor performance in a regional election last September.