German SPD to name Steinmeier to fight Merkel-source

By Madeline Chambers

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) will nominate Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Sunday to run against conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel in next year's federal election, a party source said.

The decision is an attempt to unite the divided SPD, which is threatened by a burgeoning rival leftist party and trailing badly in opinion polls.

Top members of the SPD, partner in a coalition government with Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), will meet outside Berlin on Sunday to agree an election strategy and several German newspapers and websites reported on Saturday they would announce Steinmeier, 52, as Merkel's challenger.

"We are planning this scenario," said a party source shortly before the start of the meeting.

The party is split over its direction, notably over whether to cooperate with the emerging Left party, co-headed by Oskar Lafontaine, a former chairman loathed as a traitor by many in the SPD -- Germany's oldest political party, with traditions going back to the 1860s.

Given SPD Chairman Kurt Beck's weak showing in polls, Steinmeier has long been the favourite to fight Merkel, with whom he has worked since 2005 in a loveless coalition.

In a poll for ARD published on Thursday, some 67 percent of those asked said Steinmeier was their favourite German politician compared with 63 percent for Merkel.

Beck has been blamed for a slump in SPD poll ratings this year after he broke a promise not to permit regional cooperation deals with the Left party, vilified by many because of its roots in the East German communist party.