German Social Democrats face shakeup after defeat

Germany's center-left Social Democrats began a shake-up of their leadership Tuesday after a crushing election defeat prompted calls to rethink their direction and stop shunning a hardline left-wing rival.

The Social Democrats were swept from government after 11 years Sunday, slumping to their worst election showing since World War II. Conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel won a majority for a new center-right coalition.

Peer Steinbrueck, the outgoing finance minister and a leading figure on the party's right, said he would stand down as a deputy leader and withdraw from the "first and second row" of federal politics.

The party official responsible for day-to-day strategy, general secretary Hubertus Heil, said he also would go. Party leader Franz Muentefering already has indicated he will step down, but it remains unclear who will replace him.

Lawmakers elected outgoing Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Merkel's unsuccessful challenger, to lead the party's much-reduced parliamentary group. He said it must "start working immediately ... so that this is as short a time as possible in opposition."

Earlier, the party's Berlin branch said the Social Democrats should rethink their resistance to forming a future national government with the Left Party, which they have shunned because of its economic and foreign policy positions.

Those include opposition to German military missions in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Since its formation in 2005, the Left Party has drained supporters from the Social Democrats.

"We have said categorically that things won't ever work with the Left Party at the federal level _ it's a real taboo," Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, who leads a regional Social Democrat-Left Party coalition, said on ARD television. "I would argue for this taboo to go."

Muentefering and Steinmeier were close associates of ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose labor reforms and welfare-state cuts alienated many Social Democrats and helped spawn the Left Party, a fusion of ex-communists with other leftists.

In Merkel's right-left "grand coalition," party leaders caused further anger by supporting an increase in the retirement age.

In a resolution calling for "changes in the party leadership and its policies," the party's Berlin branch identified Muentefering, Steinmeier and Steinbrueck as being "inextricably linked" with Schroeder's policies and Merkel's government.

The Bild daily reported Tuesday, without citing sources, that outgoing Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel _ a flexible centrist _ is favored to become the new party leader, with left-winger Andrea Nahles as general secretary. A conference in November will decide on new leaders.

Still, some Social Democrats remain reluctant to look leftward.

"We are making a mistake if we run after the Left (Party)," said Otto Schily, a former interior minister. He said it wouldn't be good for the Social Democrats to offer "nothing other than raising taxes or having the state invent new rules."