Change at the top

Germany's junior coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party, spent the whole of Tuesday embroiled in an awkward power struggle.

A new leader has to be chosen at this weekend's party conference to replace the discredited Guido Westerwelle. But the man penciled in for the top job - Health Minister Philipp Rösler - had to massage a few bruised egos in order to make the ensuing reshuffle work.

It's a game of musical chairs - with a twist. For Philipp Rösler, the trick was trying to make sure no chairs are taken away while the players move around.

As a Vietnamese-born orphan adopted at the age of nine months by German parents, he certainly represents a new face for the party and for Germany, but many observers have questioned whether he has the strength of character to pull the FDP out of its current mess.

After plummeting to 5 percent in opinion polls - in contrast to a record 14.6 percent in the 2009 national elections - the party has fared very badly in recent state elections.

There was considerable pressure on Rösler to find a new job before his expected election as leader at the party conference this weekend. The 38-year-old is currently health minister but he, like many of his allies in the party's younger generation, did not consider this a post fit for a man set to be Angela Merkel's new vice-chancellor and principal partner.

Keeping the old guard happy

To make an impression on the German electorate, the theory goes, he needed a more high-profile job. That meant Rösler had to force one of the FDP's political heavyweights, 65-year-old Rainer Brüderle, out of his plum position in the Economics Ministry.

Questions had been raised over whether the mild-mannered Rösler had the grit to oust an aged battler like Brüderle. Now it seems he's managed that, but only by offering a juicy consolation prize: Brüderle has been voted as the new head of the FDP's parliamentary faction.

But that, in turn, meant bouncing Birgit Homburger out of a job. Homburger is another FDP heavyweight, but she is a little vulnerable at the moment. As chairwoman of the FDP in Baden-Württemberg, many consider her responsible for the party's disastrous result in a recent state election there.

Still, Homburger is not someone who can simply be sacked. While she agreed on Tuesday to give up the leadership of the parliamentary faction, her face has been saved by the offer of a job as deputy party leader.

Pack of wolves, but still a team

It's difficult not to frame the FDP's current crisis as a generational battle, but the party itself is at pains to say this is not so. An even younger young gun in the FDP's top level, 32-year-old Secretary General Christian Lindner, offers a colorful denial.

"The FDP is not a pack of wolves where the young are usurping the old," he said. "We want to be successful as a team that includes experienced politicians who represent certain issues, and who are figures for people to identify with, and [also] includes newer, younger people who have their own ideas, and together we'll succeed."

But many in the party know that its recent malaise goes much deeper than whoever is the leader. The FDP has conspicuously failed to make a satisfactory impression on the two major issues that have dominated Germany in the past year - energy policy, particularly the future of nuclear power, and integration. Instead, it has remained the party of tax cuts - a thankless task when Chancellor Merkel has consistently says such cuts are currently not feasible.

"In my opinion it's disastrous that after one and a half years in government we haven't started any major reform project, apart from reforming conscription," said Lasse Becker, head of the FDP's young people's organization, the Young Liberals. "Instead we've stayed mired in little things. The FDP has to present a broader array of issues."

Author: Ben Knight
Editor: Martin Kuebler