Gerhard Schroeder, fresh from a sweeping re-election victory in his home state, won his party's nomination Monday to challenge Chancellor Helmut Kohl in fall elections.
The 53-year-old Lower Saxony governor, a popular moderate with telegenic charm, has given Germany's opposition Social Democrats new hope they finally can drive Kohl from office after 16 years of conservative rule.Kohl had strongly supported Schroeder's opponent in the state race, giving the contest broader significance and making many perceive it as a referendum on nationwide political change, Schroeder said Monday.
"Because he committed himself to the Lower Saxony election, and because he himself made it a preview of the federal election, Helmut Kohl decided our victory and contributed to his own defeat," he said.
Party support for Schroeder was not unanimous, possibly reflecting misgivings by the Social Democrat's left wing over the candidate's middle-of-the-road stance.
Three of the 41 voting members of the party's steering committee abstained from the nomination vote.
Schroeder is counting on Germany's yearning for change to lift him to the nation's top job in the Sept. 27 election.
Sunday's victory for Schroeder's party - an all-time high of 48 percent of the state vote, compared with about 36 percent for Christian Democratic Union - was a setback for Kohl, who had campaigned heavily for his party.
"The Kohl era is over," Schroeder declared Sunday night. "The result signals that the desire for change in federal politics is deep-seated."
An admirer of President Clinton and British leader Tony Blair, the business-friendly governor is wooing middle-class voters - much as Clinton did in 1992 and Blair did last year - to avenge four straight Social Democratic defeats by Kohl.
For Europe, a victory by Schroeder in the fall parliamentary election would further shift the continent to the left, following Blair's Labor Party win and the election of Socialist French premier Lionel Jospin.
And for Germany's oldest party, Schroeder's nomination is an attempt to polish a lackluster image created during long periods of infighting in recent years.
Kohl's Christian Democratic Union dismissed the election's importance on the national stage. "A huge victory in one state has no meaning in the federal elections," party general secretary Peter Hinze said in Bonn.