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.

“The strong-arm tactics and tastelessness of Mr Stoiber and the leadership shortcomings of Ms Merkel are not tailored to bringing this country together,” Schroeder told an outdoor rally in his hometown of Hanover.

Schroeder’s Social Democrats still trail far behind the Christian Democrats, but crept up two percentage points in a new poll released Saturday to 28%, while the CDU dropped two points to 41%.

A wily veteran campaigner, Schroeder is hoping to capitalise on his personal popularity, where he has an edge over Merkel.

In the hypothetical direct election of a new chancellor, the poll by the Emnid agency for N24 television gave Schroeder 46% support, up from 41% in June, compared to 39% for Merkel, up from 37%.

When behind in the months before the 2002 election, Schroeder upped his anti-Iraq war rhetoric and visited eastern cities flooded by overflowing rivers, securing enough grass-roots support to narrowly win re-election.

He revisited the first theme Saturday, saying that Germany’s “friends” in Europe and the US must maintain a strong position with Tehran in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

“But take the military options off of the table, we have seen that they’re not suitable,” Schroeder said, in apparent reference to the US President’s statement on Israeli TV on Friday that “all options are on the table.”

The chancellor also turned his attention to turmoil within the opposition.

Merkel, who started her campaign on Wednesday, had immediately to take the defensive to control the potential damage to Stoiber, the governor of Bavaria as well as head of the CSU.

Stoiber at a rally on Wednesday said he didn’t want the east to swing the September 18 election – a reference to the voters in six eastern states who helped return Schroeder to office in 2002 when Stoiber himself was the CDU/CSU challenger.