Schroeder launches election campaign

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder launched his election campaign today, with an immediate attempt to exploit the conservative opposition’s infighting, to help build on his beleaguered party’s recent rise in opinion polls.

Before launching a defence of the unpopular social welfare reforms his Social Democrats have pushed through, Schroeder attacked Christian Democrats’ leader Angela Merkel. He highlighted her strife with Edmund Stoiber, the head of the sister Christian Social Union, who in recent comments called into question the intelligence of voters in the depressed east.