The future of Germany’s chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, appeared to be in grave doubt on Friday night following his unexpected resignation as the leader of the centre-left Social Democratic party (SPD).
Schroeder, who has faced growing unpopularity over his economic reform programme, said he was stepping down as party chairperson and handing the job to an ally — the SPD’s popular parliamentary leader, Franz Münterfering.
Schroeder said he would carry on as the German chancellor. His resignation from party duties would allow him more time to concentrate on implementing his reform agenda.
”I am committed to this process of reform,” he told a news conference on Friday. ”I am convinced it is necessary.”
There was increasing speculation on Friday night, however, that he might be forced to step down as chancellor before the next general election in 2006, and that his red-green coalition government could collapse. The leader of the opposition Christian Democrats, Angela Merkel, said his resignation as SPD chairperson demonstrated a ”collective failure” of his government.
”This is the beginning of the end of the chancellor, and the beginning of the end of his government,” she said. ”It is a black day for Germany.”
Since winning the election in September 2002, Schroeder has seen his poll ratings plummet. He has also faced a growing rebellion from inside his party over his contentious programme to reform Germany’s welfare state.
On Friday, he said he would now be able to concentrate on ”one of the most important reform processes in Germany’s postwar history”. He added: ”I don’t fear there will be any loss of authority.”
But other political observers said the move had weakened the chancellor — and might eventually finish him off.
”It’s a panic reaction,” said Frank Decker, a political analyst at Bonn University. ”I don’t see how the party’s going to get out of the poll slump. If they keep on losing regional elections, this government will fall before its term ends.”
On Friday night, Gero Neugebauer, a professor of political science at Berlin’s Free University, forecast two possible scenarios: Schroeder could resign as chancellor next year after losing the crucial state election in North Rhine-Westphalia; or he could hang on until the 2006 election.
”If he stays on, the SPD will lose,” Neugebauer said. ”He will kill the party. They will be out of power for a long time. But I don’t think he can retire. There is no obvious successor.”
Schroeder became the SPD chairperson in 1999 after the resignation of Oskar Lafontaine as chairperson and finance minister. Since then, his agenda of welfare cuts and reforms of the labour market, designed to resuscitate the stagnant economy, has proved deeply unpopular with ordinary Germans. It has also caused an exodus of party members, who feel the SPD is betraying its socialist principles.
The SPD’s support recently sank to an all-time low of 24% in the opinion polls. Voter anger at health service cuts has alarmed party officials in the run-up to 10 or more state and local elections this year.
Under the headline ”Chancellor in trouble”, Germany’s mass-selling Bild newspaper reported on Friday that the growing crisis within the SPD was prompting calls from senior party figures for a government reshuffle.
However, Münterfering, who takes over from Schroeder at the end of March, said there was no alternative to reform.
”There is a generation of Germans in their fifties and sixties who have known nothing but economic growth,” he said. ”But for the past three years, there has been no growth. Sooner or later, they have to figure out that the melody has changed.”
Schroeder also announced on Friday that the SPD’s unpopular general secretary, Olaf Scholz, was stepping down.
The German chancellor himself has never been especially popular in the party, but — in a similar way to Tony Blair — he was long regarded as a leader who could get results. Last year, however, he repeatedly threatened to resign after left-wing SPD rebels said they would vote against his welfare cuts.
”My political destiny is bound up with these reforms,” he told them.
It may be too early to write off the chancellor, however. In the run-up to the 2002 general election, Schroeder was behind in the polls and was expected to lose. He managed to snatch victory after campaigning on a single issue: opposition to the Bush administration’s plans to invade Iraq. — Guardian Unlimited Â