IF THEY closed their eyes, Social Democrat delegates gathered in Berlin at the weekend could have imagined it was Gerhard Schröder at the microphone.
They could hear the familiar vocal intonation, the same staccato delivery. But the fire was missing, and the man on the podium was someone else – foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Judging from his performance, and his party’s programme, Mr Steinmeier has quite a few hurdles to clear if he is to unseat chancellor Angela Merkel in September – a popular leader who enters the election campaign enjoying the so-called “chancellor bonus”.
She has eclipsed Mr Steinmeier in recent months, claiming the international conference stage for herself and even slipping off to Afghanistan to visit German troops. A survey last week showed that twice as many Germans want to see Dr Merkel stay on as chancellor as want to see her replaced by Mr Steinmeier.
There are further hurdles closer to home. A career bureaucrat, Mr Steinmeier served as Mr Schröder’s chief of staff, and has never stood for election. The party has given him a safe seat in a constituency near Berlin for the September poll.
It is far from clear from the SPD election programme where he plans to lead the party in the campaign. Commentators are divided over whether it is a left-wing or centrist programme; what voters will think of it is an open question.
Mr Steinmeier has to tread a delicate policy path to please his fractious party comrades, and the programme tries to offer something for everyone.
Left-wingers are happy with promises of tax breaks for low-earners and a plan for a €7.50 minimum wage.
Centrists are happy they have foiled left-wing plans for a wealth tax. Instead there is a promise to increase the top income tax rate by two points to 47 per cent, and invest the revenue in education.
But the programme lacks hard facts and figures, and even Mr Steinmeier has admitted the hike in the top tax rate will affect just 1.5 per cent of German taxpayers.
In the end, Mr Steinmeier’s election hopes will depend on how successfully he can capitalise on popular anger at perceived excesses of banks and managers.
“Something is smouldering in our country,” said Mr Steinmeier at the weekend. “Anger and indignation are rife. The people’s sense of justice has been violated.” He told delegates it was time to shun the “excess and greed” of recent years and return to the “post-war values” of “responsibility and common sense”.
It’s a risky strategy: voters have not forgotten Mr Schröder’s nickname, the “bosses’ comrade”, because of his pro-business approach.
It was SPD, now calling for tax hikes for the rich, that cut eight points from the 53 per cent top tax rate and later introduced the most drastic social welfare reform in German history.
If Mr Steinmeier is to give Ms Merkel a run for her money, he will have to stop channelling his old boss and find his own voice.