Berlin: German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said yesterday his beleaguered Social Democrats (SPD) would field a candidate to unseat Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2017 amid an internal debate whether the party should simply capitulate to the popular leader.
Steinmeier, who lost dismally in a 2009 campaign against Merkel, said the SPD would mount a challenge to her Christian Democrats at the next election despite the conservatives’ double-digit lead in the polls. “The SPD will enter the race with its own candidate,” he told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. “A party with a 150-year-old history will not just give up before the campaign has even begun.”
The SPD has ruled as junior partner in a left-right “grand coalition” with Merkel since 2013 and during her first term from 2005 to 2009. Merkel has not said whether she would stand for a fourth term at the next poll, expected in two years’ time, but she and her party enjoy strong support thanks largely to Germany’s robust economic health.
An SPD state leader, Torsten Albig, stunned the German political scene last month when he suggested that his party might be better off campaigning to remain Merkel’s junior partner rather than to replace her. Merkel is “doing an excellent job”, Albig said, to the disbelief of many of his party colleagues.
SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel, who serves as Merkel’s deputy chancellor and economy minister, said this month that he thought Merkel could be beaten in 2017 and that he was open to a party referendum to pick the challenger. After a decade in power, Merkel is credited with steering Germany unscathed through years of economic crisis in Europe and occupying the centre ground in German politics, making mainstream opposition exceedingly difficult.
Bild am Sonntag cited a poll showing that the SPD could only count on support from 24 percent of voters versus 43 percent for Merkel’s conservatives.
The opposition Greens would tally 11 percent and the far-left Linke 10 percent, according to the survey conducted by independent opinion research firm Forsa.
Meanwhile, Merkel yesterday defended her government’s hard line in negotiations with Greece on a new rescue package, saying it had spurred Athens to commit to necessary reforms. Merkel told ZDF public television that the package approved last week by the Greek parliament and eurozone finance ministers for a third bailout would help Greece “get back on its feet”.
AFP
