Schroeder to hand over party leadership

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder hopes to quell persistent dissent over his efforts to trim the generous welfare state by handing over the leadership of his governing Social Democratic Party today.

Mr Schroeder is asking some 480 delegates at a special party conference in Berlin to endorse a trusted aide, Franz Muentefering, as his successor as party leader.

Announcing the move last month, he said the change would free him to steer the country’s domestic and foreign agendas after months spent trying to sell his unpopular reform plans to the party faithful.

“Leaving any office that suited me well is a little painful,” Mr Schroeder told reporters yesterday.

“But I’m absolutely sure that, with Franz Muentefering at the top, the process of Social Democratic recovery that is slowly becoming apparent will strengthen and continue – and I’m very happy about that.”

Mr Muentefering, 64, the Social Democrats’ parliamentary leader, is considered closer to the party’s core voters. Running unopposed today, the incoming party chairman can expect a “clear vote of confidence”, said Kurt Beck, one of the party’s deputy leaders.

Mr Schroeder became head of the centre-left party in April 1999, six months after taking power.

With Europe’s biggest economy in its third straight year of near-zero growth, Mr Schroeder launched his drive to cut social programmes a year ago.

His plans, which include higher patient fees for health care and cuts to retirement and welfare benefits, have met stiff resistance among leftists and the Social Democrats’ traditional trade union allies.

Illustrating Mr Schroeder’s difficulties, party leaders threatened in the run-up today’s convention to expel several disgruntled members who threatened to form a breakaway party in response to what they see as a “neo-liberal” shift.

The Social Democrats’ poll ratings have slumped amid high unemployment and misgivings over the reform drive since Mr Schroeder narrowly won re-election in 2002.

A survey released on Friday by the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen polling group gave the Social Democrats 29% of the vote, compared with 48% for the opposition conservatives. In the last election, Mr Schroeder’s party took 38.5%.