Germany's conservative Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) party leader Angela Merkel (right) arrives with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (second right) Social Democratic party leader Franz Muentefering (centre) and Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber as they arrived for their fourth round of coalition talks at the CDU headquarter in Berlin yesterday. - REUTERS
BERLIN, (Reuters):
EFFORTS TO forge a new bipartisan German government were thrown into disarray yesterday when the powerful head of the Social Democrats (SPD) said he would step down after suffering a revolt within his party.
Franz Muentefering made his shock announcement after party leaders voted against his candidate for the post of SPD general secretary, plunging the party into crisis in the midst of talks on forming a government with Angela Merkel's conservatives.
The SPD and conservative Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), traditional rivals, were forced into talks after an inconclusive election on Sept. 18 left them with no realistic alternative for a stable majority.
Muentefering had been expected to wield ample power in a new cabinet in the dual roles of labour minister and vice chancellor - posts he may now decline to take up.
He has been seen as one of the few SPD leaders capable of forging consensus with the conservatives while keeping his own fractious party in line.
Coalition talks, expected to be wrapped up by Nov. 12, continued on Monday and Merkel insisted there was no reason to doubt the timetable.
But should Muentefering pull out of the new government, it could have far-reaching consequences -- perhaps even prompting a breakdown of talks and new elections if the conservatives feel they can no longer negotiate with the SPD.
"The SPD is leaderless, it is badly weakened in the coalition talks, and Muentefering's credibility as vice chancellor and spokesman for his party is in question. Because of this, one has to say the coalition talks are endangered," said Juergen Falter, a political scientist at Mainz University.
Influential Bavarian premier and CSU head Edmund Stoiber said that Muentefering was a "cornerstone" of the coalition and he left it open whether he would join the government.
"It is naturally a changed situation for me, for us," Stoiber told reporters in answer to a question over his future plans. "I will discuss it tomorrow with my party executive."
BLOW TO AUTHORITY
Leading members of the SPD voted 23-14 to appoint 35-year-old Andrea Nahles, a leading left-wing voice and former head of the SPD's youth wing, as general secretary -- a post with responsibility for managing internal party affairs.
Her election, which Muentefering had publicly opposed, could herald a shift to the left by a party that Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder moved to the centre during his seven years in power.
Muentefering said after the vote that he would not seek re-election as SPD leader, a position he has held since taking over that job from Schroeder in early 2004, and left open the possibility that he could withdraw from his cabinet posts.
He told reporters he wanted to help the party ensure as many of its policies as possible were implemented by a new government. "Whether that means that after the party conference I will or can still be in the cabinet, I have expressly left open," he said.
The SPD holds its party congress two weeks from now in Karlsruhe, where it will decide whether to approve a coalition agreement with Merkel's conservatives and set the stage for the first coalition of the two top parties since the 1960s.
Now it will also have to replace Muentefering as SPD leader, and perhaps find a new vice chancellor.
The two leading candidates for the top party post are Brandenburg premier Matthias Platzeck, 51, and Rhineland-Palatinate premier Kurt Beck, 56.
The conservatives and the SPD need to reach consensus on a range of domestic and foreign issues over the next two weeks.
So far, they have agreed that 35 billion euros ($42 billion) must be found by 2007 to plug a hole in the budget and bring Germany back in line with European Union deficit rules.
Now they face the tough task of agreeing where the savings or extra revenues will come from -- a task made all the more difficult by the leadership vacuum within the SPD.
"This is a very serious situation and not just for the SPD," Wolfgang Bosbach, the deputy conservative leader in parliament, told German television. "I fear this will also weigh heavily on the coalition talks."
