German foreign minister to challenge Merkel for top job

BERLIN: Germany's centre-left SPD set up an election showdown today, picking current foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier as its candidate to face Chancellor Angela Merkel in elections in 2009.

Party bigwigs from the Social Democrats have chosen Steinmeier as the man to revive the ailing party's fortunes, SPD sources told AFP, with a formal announcement expected at around 1:00 pm (1630 IST).

As well as being foreign minister, Steinmeier is also vice-chancellor in the three-year-old, uneasy "grand coalition" of the SPD with Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU).

The bespectacled, silver-haired 52-year-old -- who has never run for public office -- will have his work cut out to pose a real challenge to German's popular first female chancellor in the vote next September, however.

Born January 5, 1956 in a small town in Lower Saxony in the old West Germany, Steinmeier was known on the football field as an efficient "all-rounder" who could play any position with ease and work well with a team.

He served as chief of staff in Gerhard Schroeder's centre-left ruling coalition with the Greens of 1998 to 2005, helping to shape behind the scenes an effective but unpopular package of economic reforms known as Agenda 2010.

After elections in 2005 left neither the CDU nor the SPD with enough seats to rule with their preferred coalition partner, Steinmeier emerged from the shadows when Schroeder put forward his protege as a possible foreign minister.

In the ensuing SPD-CDU "grand coalition" under Merkel, Steinmeier duly took on the job in November 2005, becoming in time a well-known and respected figure on the international diplomatic scene.