COLOGNE, Germany, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder´s sudden resignation as leader of the Social Democratic Party Friday came as a surprise even to many senior SPD members. In his announcement, the chancellor said he wanted to be free of the burden of also running party affairs in order to concentrate his energies on the government´s recently launched program of economic and social reforms.
The opposition, predictably, was quick to interpret Schroeder´s latest move as a sign of desperation. Christian Democrat party leader Edmund Stoiber called on the chancellor to resign, and to make way for new elections.
But to some observers it looked like a shrewd political tactic. After a long period of indecision, of fits and starts, Schroeder may at last be coming to grips with the political reality that there is no escape from forcing the Germans to swallow some very strong medicine. By resigning as party leader, these observers say, Schroeder is sending the message that he is serious about the reforms.
If so, it is going to take all the chancellor´s reputed public relations skills to sell the targeted cutbacks in social benefits and services to a dismayed and indignant German public.
A drastic streamlining of the legendary but extremely costly social "net" that takes care of every German from birth to the grave is crucial to the country´s economic recovery. And while it is true that the German economy is showing some signs of improvement, the reforms continue to be necessary.
Schroeder´s decision came at a time when his reform program was losing steam. For example, the introduction of fees for health services were being undermined by an increasing list of exemptions from paying them. At the same time, the cost of an ageing society continues to increase faster than the pay-as-you-go pensions system.
"This is the first attempt to reform the biggest social system in the world, and it makes sense that Schroeder should want to devote all his energies to it," a source close to the SPD said Friday. But whether a "I have to be tough for your own good" approach will reverse Schroeder´s downward slide in the polls is another story. With elections in the spring-summer of 2006, he has less than two years to see positive results.
The problem for Schroeder, one commentator wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper Friday, is that "such social policies can hardly serve to secure majorities. But in the best case a government can persuade the public that hard measures are necessary, but that supposes a steady and reliable policy approach. If anything, it´s a move he should have made before: It may be too late."
Schroeder is not the first SPD chancellor to give up the party leadership, but the precedent is not very promising. As chancellor, Helmut Schmidt handed control of the SPD to Willy Brandt -- and lived to regret it. Brandt moved the party to the left in the hope of undermining the Green Party, a maneuver that contributed to the SPD´s defeat in the 1982 German elections and to the return of the Christian Democrats under Helmut Kohl.
This time the switch could help Schroeder´s chances, observers say. If he has any hope at all of re-election, his party must first win the state elections in North Rhine -- Westphalia -- in the spring of 2005. In this respect, Schroeder´s successor, party secretary Franz Muntefering has a key role to play in Schroeder´s chances of survival. An efficient and indefatigable politician, Muntefering is from Westphalia with -- analysts say -- a strong power base in that state.
