GERMANY: Germany's SPD is in turmoil, writes Derek Scally, with a rebellious left wing and a younger generation keen to take over the reins.
Six weeks after it creaked into life, Berlin's coalition carousel has begun to spin out of control, shedding senior political figures at alarming speed.
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has already agreed to stand down when coalition talks are complete and is basically just along for the ride. Now Franz Müntefering, the cigarillo-smoking Social Democrat (SPD) leader, has been flung off and has landed with a bump.
His departure has exposed the Social Democrats as a house divided and thrown into serious doubt whether the party is in any state to join a grand coalition with the Christian Democrats (CDU).
Müntefering is not the first victim of party's left- and right-wing factions. Schröder used a sweat-and-threat method to bridge the divide during his five years as party leader before handing over the reins, exhausted, to Müntefering in February of last year.
Müntefering was a more successful leader and was the perfect political tag-team partner for Schröder, covering his back from internal criticism of their government's economic reforms. He managed to keep the two factions in check, but on Monday left-wingers took their revenge for his left-wing election campaign that produced few benefits for them.
SPD left-wingers point out that, along with the Greens and the post-communist Left Party, voters gave Germany's political left a majority.
Most SPD left-wingers know that the Left Party's history and current leaders make such a coalition, the so-called red- red-green option, impossible at present. Still they are furious that, after this left-wing "victory", Müntefering gave them few cabinet posts while the right wing got more power, including the all-important finance ministry.
The putsch against Müntefering was also a generational row. Younger members were amazed that, after leading the SPD to one its worst-ever election results, the older generation of leaders refused to stand aside.
Ironically, Müntefering appears to have fallen victim to a fate many assumed was in store for CDU leader Angela Merkel. She squandered a huge election lead to finish just one percentage point ahead of the SPD. Rather than wait for the CDU knives to come out, she called a snap vote of confidence in her party leadership.
For Dr Merkel, however, the resignation of Müntefering, and Edmund Stoiber's related decision to stay in Munich, is a mixed blessing. Read one way, she emerges strengthened from Stoiber's public, if belated, recognition of her right to rule. Stoiber though is also now better placed to lob political bombs in her direction.
Stoiber worked closely with Müntefering on inter-party committees, where the two developed a good working relationship. In standing down, the SPD had lost an "integrating figure" and "cornerstone" of the party, said Stoiber. "Nobody knows in what direction the SPD will go now."
The SPD had already called a party conference for mid-November, planning to debate the grand coalition agreement. Now party leaders will use that gathering, and the weeks before it, to discuss the fate of the SPD instead.
The two most likely candidates for party leader, SPD state premiers Kurt Beck of Rhineland-Palatinate and Matthias Platzeck of Brandenburg, met last night in Berlin to discuss their options. Neither is expected to veer dramatically from Müntefering's political course but, as members of the next political generation, they face a considerable challenge to fill his shoes.