Europe Features
Bavarian leader Stoiber under pressure to step down
By Jean-Baptiste Piggin
Jan 13, 2007, 12:06 GMT

Munich - Bavarian Premier Edmund Stoiber, 65, is struggling to tame his opponents, as a revolt against his leadership widens in his conservative party, the Christian Social Union (CSU).

Reports of an uprising by key lieutenants against Stoiber which have been repeatedly denied have unsettled German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government this week and sent the popularity ratings of the centre-right down.

The CSU is the Bavaria-only sister party to Merkel's centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), but the two leaders have had a strained relationship. Stoiber's troubles began a year ago when he first agreed, then refused to serve as a minister in the Merkel government.

So far, the public face of revolt against Stoiber has been a red- haired county chief executive, Gabriele Pauli, 49. For weeks she has has plugged her message on national television and in the press that it is time for Stoiber to go. In public, other CSU officials claim loyalty to Stoiber.

Stoiber and Pauli met during a reception in Munich Friday evening for 15 seconds, too little time for Pauli to assail Stoiber.

She later told reporters she just wished Stoiber 'the strength to handle what's coming up, whatever that may be' and said she was making progress, since Stoiber, once the unquestioned state leader, has now offered to let a party conference vote on his post-2008 future.

In the Bavarian capital Munich, CSU state parliamentarians said potential successors to Stoiber as premier could include Erwin Huber, currently Bavarian minister of the economy, and Guenther Beckstein, the state's minister of the interior.

Discontent with Stoiber has grown because CSU officials fear his loss of popularity will damage other CSU candidates.

Senior CSU deputies who asked not to be named said Stoiber's bid to accommodate critics would only buy him a few days of grace before the revolt worsened.

In 2002 Stoiber ran for German chancellor as centre-right leader, and only narrowly lost to Social Democrat incumbent Gerhard Schroeder. He remained a key power broker at the national level as chief of a rich state where the CSU has ruled for half a century.

His career went into decline after he suddenly renounced plans in late 2005 to become a minister under Merkel, which was widely perceived as petulant and led to demands for him to adopt a more consensual style of leadership.

Polls for ZDF television that were released Friday showed national support for the alliance between Merkel's CDU and Stoiber's CSU slipping 1 percentage point this week to 36 per cent. The Social Democrats, currently in coalition with Merkel, gained 1 point to 32 per cent.