Schauble quits as party chief as CDU faces difficult future

The leader of Germany's opposition Christian Democrats (CDU), Dr Wolfgang Schauble, resigned yesterday - defeated by what he described as "the worst crisis in his party's history". Dr Schauble announced his resignation as the party's entire parliamentary front bench agreed to stand for re-election next week.

The party was still reeling from the imposition of a £16 million fine for breaking rules on party funding when regional CDU leaders from the state of North Rhine Westphalia met Dr Schauble on Tuesday evening to urge him to step down. Deputies returning to parliament after a two-week break in their constituencies reported that local activists had lost patience with the leadership.

Dr Schauble has been widely criticised for his mismanagement of the funding scandal and for a succession of contradictory statements regarding a DM100,000 (£40,000) donation he received from a fugitive arms dealer. The CDU leader last week found himself in the ignominious position of swearing an affidavit to the effect that his latest version of the event was truthful.

The CDU faces elections in two states, North Rhine Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, during the next three months and opinion polls show that the funding scandal has had a disastrous effect on the party's popularity.

"The CDU is in the worst crisis in its history. There have been unprecedented violations in the past of party funding laws and the principles of transparency and inner-party democracy," Dr Schauble said yesterday.

"Clearing up these matters was and is painful for the party, for its members and supporters. But there is no alternative to this path to regain lost confidence and to build new credibility.

"The crisis in the CDU must not become a crisis for our democracy. That is why it is of overwhelming importance that the CDU remains the great integrating force in the centre. This goal overrides everything else," Dr Schauble said yesterday.

The party's finance spokesman, Mr Friedrich Merz, is expected to succeed Dr Schauble as parliamentary leader and the CDU's general secretary, Ms Angela Merkel, is the front-runner to become party leader. Both are members of the younger generation of Christian Democrats and are so far untainted by the funding scandal.

Mr Merz (44) is a former MEP who has performed well since he took up the finance portfolio after the election defeat of 1998. A gifted debater with a good grasp of detail, he has had an unenviable task in recent months as Chancellor Gerhard Schroder's centre-left government adopted a rigorous financial policy which won plaudits from all sides.

Ms Merkel (45) was the first leading Christian Democrat to call for a clean break with the former chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, when the system of illegal donations came to light. A pastor's daughter from eastern Germany, she has kept a cool head throughout the crisis, despite a vicious campaign against her by Dr Kohl's friends.

Dr Schauble's resignation will increase pressure on the CDU prime minister of the southern state of Hesse, Mr Roland Koch, to follow suit.

Mr Koch admitted earlier this month that he lied about accounting regularities but he has remained in office with the support of local Liberal Free Democrats, who defied calls from their federal leadership to pull out of the coalition government in the state.

Dr Schauble's departure marks the end of a career that saw him overcome an assassination attempt that has obliged him to use a wheelchair for the past decade. One of the sharpest minds in German politics, Dr Schauble was a loyal lieutenant to Dr Kohl until the former chancellor's resignation as party leader following his election defeat in 1998.

Dr Kohl thwarted his protege's leadership ambitions in 1997, when many party strategists believed that a change of leader could avert electoral defeat. And, despite his public veneration of the virtue of personal loyalty, Dr Kohl has been content to allow Dr Schauble and the CDU to sink deeper into political disaster rather than reveal the origin of u1 million in the illegal donations he received.

The two men, who now communicate only through their lawyers, have been running clandestine press campaigns against one another.

Dr Kohl will undoubtedly relish the sight of Dr Schauble's final humiliation and the Social Democrats' general secretary, Mr Franz Muntefering, believes the former chancellor will continue to exert a malign influence within his party.

"There is panic in the CDU. We still have to witness the battle for the party leadership. I don't think Kohl wants to be chancellor again. But I wouldn't put anything else past him," he said.