German opposition chancellor candidate sacks spokesman as election looms

Peer Steinbrueck, the German opposition Social Democrats (SPD)'s challenger for the chancellorship, fired his chief spokesman on Monday as the party lags behind Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition in opinion polls with just three months left before the Sept. 22 election. Steinbrueck said he had parted with main spokesman Michael Donnermeyer in order to go into the last 100 days of the campaign with the best possible team. The spokesman will be replaced by Rolf Kleine, a former journalist of Germany's popular Bild newspaper, local media reported. Steinbrueck's election campaign got off on the wrong foot as his profitable speaking engagements caused bad publicity. He earned 1.25 million euros (1.61 million U.S. dollars) for speeches at private functions. He also made gaffes in the early stage of the campaign including saying that he found the chancellor's salary too low and labelling Italian politicians as "clowns". As chief spokesman of a candidate plays an important role in the election campaign, Donnermeyer has been blamed for failing to prevent Steinbrueck from making damaging statements. Public support rate for the SPD stood at 27 percent while Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party Christian Social Union scored 41 percent, according to latest poll results, making it more difficult for Steinbrueck to overcome the odds to win the chancellorship from Merkel in the general election. Steinbrueck was nominated last year by SPD party leaders as their candidate in German federal elections in September. He was seen as the center left party's best hope to win back the chancellorship, which was held by SPD under Gerhard Schroeder from 1998 to 2005. Merkel will compete for her third term in this year's election, and has expressed her confidence to win. She remains the most popular politician in Germany, which owes much to sticking to principles in dealing with the eurozone debt crisis, including pressing indebted eurozone members to carry out austerity measures and reforms. Gravity-defying German economic performance during the crisis also helped to boost support for the Merkel administration.