Schroeder faces confidence vote to trigger elections

German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder faces a confidence motion he hopes to lose today, in a bid to bring down his own government and seek a new mandate for stalled economic reforms in early autumn elections.

To do that, he has to pull off a feat of political juggling: lose the vote by making his own supporters abstain, and then rally disgruntled party members for an uphill fight for re-election amid high unemployment and sluggish economic growth.