Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) have scented blood. Now that Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has ceded power for the first time in his career by quitting as their leader, they want a leftward shift that will slow his reforms.
Schroeder, looking tired and subdued since his surprise announcement last Friday, has no option but to listen.
He saved his government by handing the chairmanship of his restless, demoralized center-left SPD to a trusted and far more popular ally, Franz Muentefering, amid growing grassroots fury over his welfare cuts.
But now he has a boss. It is a humiliating blow for the man who stood up to Washington over Iraq, achieved the near impossible by winning re-election in 2002 and gained parliamentary approval for landmark reforms in December.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/02/13/2003098585
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