GERMAN FOREIGN minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has opened his bid to unseat chancellor Angela Merkel next year with a stinging attack on Thatcherism and Reaganomics.
Some 95 per cent of Social Democratic Party (SPD) delegates meeting in Berlin on Saturday chose Mr Steinmeier to head a general election campaign next year likely to be dominated by voter insecurity and anger over the banking crisis.
"The rule of radical market ideology that began with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan has ended with a loud bang," said Mr Steinmeier to cheering delegates. "The world is holding its breath, but also breathing a sigh of relief."
In a barnstorming speech, Mr Steinmeier vowed to close the 14-point gap with Dr Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) by painting them as supporters of the free-market policies behind the financial market meltdown.
The weekend party conference was a rare show of unity for the SPD, paralysed by months of damaging inner-party feuding between left-wingers and centrist supporters of Schröder-era reforms.
On Saturday Mr Steinmeier declared the feud over, without explaining how.
"People are looking to us to lead them through the crisis and we can do it," he said. "We've buried our differences. We believe in ourselves again and that's making us strong."
Saturday's vote marked the latest stage in the remarkable career of Germany's 52-year-old chief diplomat. He rose to prominence as the chief-of-staff in Mr Gerhard Schröder's administration and co-author of the economic reforms that eventually cost Mr Schröder his job and the party thousands of members.
With Mr Schröder in the front row, Mr Steinmeier conceded some reforms were "wrong in the detail" but defended the programme as a whole. The SPD's left wing was left in no doubt they can not expect anything more than the limited corrections agreed under Kurt Beck.
He stood down abruptly as party leader six weeks ago, complaining his authority had been undermined by party intrigue.
Leading the putsch against Mr Beck were supporters of Mr Steinmeier and Franz Müntefering, the former SPD leader re-elected into his old job on Saturday with 85 per cent delegate support.
The foreign minister was given a five-minute standing ovation for his 88-minute sweat-and-tears oration in which he sounded remarkably similar to, if less assured than, his former boss.
