German opposition SPD struggles under ex-chancellor's legacy

Battling to topple Chancellor Angela Merkel and her centre-right administration, Germany's Social Democrats are struggling to overcome a feeling they betrayed their left-wing ideals the last time they held power. Gerhard Schroeder was the last chancellor of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and his government engineered and implemented the sweeping social and economic reforms that have helped buttress Europe's biggest economy against the worst of the eurozone crisis in recent years. But Schroeder's drastic policies, known as Agenda 2010, also alienated much of the SPD's traditional grass-roots base and the party has never really managed to win back many disenchanted left-wing voters. "It's still very much an issue even today," says Benedikt Falszewski, head of one of the SPD's local branches in Duisburg, a large industrial town in the west of Germany. "People see the Agenda 2010 as very unjust. They feel the SPD betrayed its values," Falszewski told AFP, as he campaigned for the SPD's candidate for Duisburg. Conceived at a time when Germany was known as the "sick man of Europe", Agenda 2010 was a vast programme of reforms drawn up 10 years ago, making the economy more competitive, slashing welfare payments and making it easier to hire and fire employees. But in pushing through those reforms, Schroeder, "in the eyes of many voters, surrendered (the SPD's) trademark -- social justice," said Jens Walther, political scientist at Duesseldorf University. As a result, a total 130,000 SPD card carriers -- the party is Germany's oldest political party and recently celebrated its 150th birthday -- handed in their membership cards between 2003 and 2008. Their score has plummeted in the popularity polls and a new far-left party, Die Linke, has won over many disenchanted SPD voters. Ten years on and Germany is one of Europe's most prosperous economies, with its low unemployment rate the envy of many of its neighbours. And most economists, even the political right wing, puts its success down to Schroeder's reforms. Abroad "everyone is envious," said Walther. A number of fellow EU members, such as France, are even debating whether to copy the German model. For a great many, Schroeder is the man who "put the necessity of advancing the state ahead of his own interests", the daily Rheinische Post wrote in a recent analysis. But large groups within the SPD just do not agree. And this conflict is a serious hurdle for the party's chancellor candidate Peer Steinbrueck, who is seeking to unseat Merkel on September 22. According to a recent opinion poll, the Social Democrats would win 26 percent of the votes compared with 41 percent for the conservative CDU and its CSU Bavarian sister party. The SPD has put social justice at the centre of its election campaign. It wants to curb rents, increase family support and introduce a minimum wage. But for many left-wing voters, Schroeder's reforms compromised the party's credibility as a champion of the rights of the weakest in society. All the more so because Steinbrueck is from the party's right wing. "If we say: 'we want to repeal some aspects of the reforms,' the response is: 'but it was you who initiated them in the first place'," said Falszewski. Among the grass-roots supporters, "the disappointment runs deep", even if the SPD remains the first choice for left-wing voters. Among the different reforms, the raising of the retirement age to 67, agreed by a grand coalition of Social Democrats and conservatives in 2007, is also a source of resentment, Falszweski said.