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Slideshow Steinbrueck surprise shakes up German election race Tweet Share this Email Print Related News Former finmin Steinbrueck to challenge Merkel in 2013 8:32am EDT Europe must take "deep breath" and enact reforms: Merkel Tue, Sep 25 2012 Merkel says leaders must agree on closer euro zone coordination Mon, Sep 17 2012 Analysis: Euro zone advancing through obstacle course Wed, Sep 12 2012 German court removes hurdle to euro zone bailout fund Wed, Sep 12 2012 Analysis & Opinion Austerity in the dock as Europe’s debt-stricken leaders meet German models Related Topics World » 1 of 4. File photo of Social Democrat Peer Steinbrueck delivering his speech at the party convention of Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Berlin, December 6, 2011. Former German finance minister Peer Steinbrueck will be the Social Democrat (SPD) candidate for chancellor in next year's federal election, taking on conservative incumbent Angela Merkel, two SPD sources said September 28, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Fabian Bimmer/Files By Noah Barkin BERLIN | Fri Sep 28, 2012 11:12am EDT BERLIN (Reuters) - Next year's German election just got a lot more interesting. News on Friday that Peer Steinbrueck, a former finance minister with an acerbic wit, will lead the opposition Social Democrats (SPD) into the 2013 vote was a surprise to many in Germany and may have stirred unease in Chancellor Angela Merkel's entourage. Just a few weeks ago, Steinbrueck was seen as the least likely of three SPD contenders - a "troika" also comprising party chief Sigmar Gabriel and former foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier - to challenge Merkel. His nomination, roughly a year before Germans go to the polls, means the campaign will be more confrontational. Merkel can no longer count on the consensual, conciliatory SPD she experienced in the 2009 campaign, when the centre-left party's campaign was led by the far more diplomatic Steinmeier. For the SPD, choosing Steinbrueck amounts to a high stakes gamble. The 65-year-old from Hamburg, an avid chess player who has won the endorsement of both the party's living former chancellors - Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schroeder - is perhaps the only politician in the SPD with a hope of beating Merkel. His centrist positions could lure conservatives from the ruling Christian Democrats (CDU) and Free Democrats (FDP), who are fed up with the chancellor's leftward policy shift on issues ranging from nuclear power to childcare and wages. And his financial expertise - he led Berlin's response to the 2008-09 global financial crisis - could convince voters that he would be a safe pair of hands in leading Germany through the euro zone turmoil. Although a majority of Germans praise Merkel's handling of the euro crisis, there is a feeling that she has failed to lay out a convincing vision for Europe's future or rally the country behind her policy goals. Steinbrueck, a gifted speaker with clear-cut opinions and a readiness to express them in unvarnished fashion, will appeal to Germans who bemoan what they see as Merkel's caution and slipperiness. At a news conference on Friday, he vowed to defeat Merkel and replace her centre-right government with a coalition of SPD and Greens, an outcome that looks like a long shot for now. "The big question for the SPD is who has the best chance to beat Merkel. To me that's Steinbrueck," said Frank Decker, a political scientist at Bonn University. RUFFLING FEATHERS But a Steinbrueck candidacy also carries big risks for the SPD. Traditional leftists in the party may balk at supporting a centrist who as finance minister backed an increase in the retirement age, and in his 2010 book "The Bottom Line" urged the SPD to distance itself from its union roots. This week Steinbrueck unveiled a set of tough new proposals for reining in banks, in part to assuage the fears of the party's powerful left wing. Steinbrueck and the SPD will also have to convince Germans that bolder steps to resolve the euro crisis, including some form of common bond issuance, are the right course. Polls show this will be a hard sell. But perhaps the biggest challenge for Steinbrueck will be controlling himself. A tall man with sparse, spiky hair, he has earned a reputation for speaking his mind and ruffling feathers. "Steinbrueck says what he thinks. Ninety percent of the time it's a strength, the other 10 percent it gets him in trouble," said a senior German official who worked closely with Steinbrueck when he was finance minister. When Nicolas Sarkozy gate-crashed a meeting of European finance ministers in 2007, Steinbrueck took him to task for lax budget policies, infuriating the then French president. After investment bank Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy in 2008 he blamed the United States for spawning the financial crisis and predicted that its days as a financial superpower were numbered. His biggest clash came with the Swiss, whom he likened to "Indians" running scared from the cavalry during his 2009 crackdown on tax havens. After news of his candidacy emerged on Friday, the right-wing Swiss People's Party tweeted: "Will Switzerland now have to protect its borders from the German cavalry?" Last year, Steinbrueck made headlines for loudly heckling his successor as finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble in parliament: "If you want to become chancellor, you better learn some manners," Schaeuble shot back. Schaeuble was probably right. Steinbrueck will need to control his temper and rhetoric if he is to be taken seriously in Germany, a country where moderation and seriousness in politics are highly valued commodities. Officials close to Merkel see another key weakness: Steinbrueck does not suffer fools gladly. On the campaign trail he can sometimes seem condescending and distant. In the one race Steinbrueck did run, the 2005 election in the big state of North Rhine-Westphalia, he suffered a humiliating defeat to the CDU, prompting then-chancellor Schroeder to call an early federal election that he ended up losing to Merkel. "If you show a dumb person they are dumb, they will hate you. That is his big problem," a top Merkel aide told Reuters. The big question in the 2013 election will be whether German voters, who are notoriously averse to change in times of crisis, are really ready for something new. Opinion polls, which show Germans preferring Merkel to Steinbrueck as chancellor by 53 percent to 36, suggest not. But if, after eight years of Merkel, Germans decide they want someone who slams their fists on the table and isn't afraid to call the shots, then Steinbrueck has a chance. Regardless who wins, the German election is shaping up as a far more interesting battle than it seemed only a few weeks ago. "Steinbrueck is the rhetorical machinegun of German politics, and Merkel the mistress of ju-jitsu," said Josef Joffe, editor of weekly newspaper Die Zeit. "Both are absolutely alpha animals who'll give each other a good run." (Editing by Janet McBride and Alastair Macdonald) World Related Quotes and News Company Price Related News Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above. 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