Schroeder meets rivals to resolve leadership battle

BERLIN—German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder prepared to meet his conservative challenger Angela Merkel in a bid to resolve their bitter power struggle, amid speculation that he may be ready to abandon his attempt to cling to his job. Two and a half weeks after inconclusive parliamentary elections, the talks, scheduled to start on Thursday evening, have raised expectations that Schroeder could give up his claim to a third term in office. It would thus remove the main obstacle to a grand left-right coalition of his Social Democrats and Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democrats, last seen in Germany in the 1960s.
Merkel warned however ahead of the meeting not to expect any quick decision on the leadership. “No result should be expected before Sunday,” she told a press conference.Franz Muentefering, the head of Schroeder’s party, said a decision on the chancellery would not be known until Monday, when he and the chancellor would submit the outcome of the talks to the SPD leadership. Schroeder — who is due to visit Russia on Friday and Saturday — has given no clear sign that he is ready to stand aside but officials from Merkel’s party said they expected him to capitulate by the end of the week, enabling her to be the first woman to govern the biggest country in the European Union. “We are a few hours away from a concession that will see Angela Merkel become the first woman to be German chancellor,” Wolfgang Bosbach, the deputy leader of the Christian Democratic Union’s parliamentary group, told national radio. Taking part in Thursday’s talks will be Schroeder, Merkel, Edmund Stoiber — who leads the Christian Democrats’ Bavarian sister party — and Muentefering. The key meeting follows a third and final round of exploratory talks 24 hours earlier between the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats, who finished almost neck-to-neck in the elections on September 18. The Christian Democrats’ four-seat advantage is insufficient to give them a governing majority, forcing both of the main parties into a so-called grand coalition. Merkel and Schroeder said Wednesday that the prospect of a power-sharing deal between the parties had moved closer.
The charismatic Schroeder, 61, claims that although his party was beaten in the election, Germans do not have confidence in Merkel because support for her dropped sharply in the days before voting. But Merkel, 51, a trained physicist who grew up in the communist former East Germany, argues that as leader of the biggest parliamentary group, she automatically has a mandate to be chancellor. Schroeder has offered to step down if his party wants him to, but the Social Democrats have so far insisted that he should lead the next government.—Agencies