BERLIN — A week after Angela Merkel’s chosen successor threw her conservative party into disarray by announcing she would step down, the candidates who have emerged seem to represent the antithesis of the centrist chancellor from Germany’s east.

All are men, all hail from the country’s former west, and all are pushing a new identity for the party, the conservative Christian Democratic Union. But they also offer very different visions of the future — some urging continuity with the Merkel era, others a clean break that could even shorten her tenure.

Coming at a time when Europe and the world are looking to Germany for renewed leadership, the choice of the next party leader is likely to have ramifications well beyond the party.

Uncertainty has enveloped the Christian Democrats since their current leader, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Ms. Merkel’s handpicked successor, announced last week that she would step down after a local chapter broke with party policy and voted with the far-right Alternative for Germany in electing the governor of the state of Thuringia.