GERMANY:THE DISASTROUS showing for Bavaria's Christian Social Union (CSU) in weekend elections claimed its first victim yesterday with the resignation of party chairman Erwin Huber, writes Derek Scally in Berlin.
After scarcely a year in office, Mr Huber said he would vacate his position at an emergency party conference called after the CSU lost absolute power in Bavaria for the first time in half a century.
He is likely to be replaced by Horst Seehofer, federal agriculture minister in Berlin, who lost out to Mr Huber in a leadership challenge last year.
"I will vacate my position to give the party the opportunity for a new beginning in its leadership," Mr Huber said yesterday.
His departure increases the resignation pressure on state premier Günther Beckstein. Together, the two men last year toppled Edmund Stoiber - party leader since 1993 - but share the blame for the CSU's worst election result since 1954.
"Huber's departure is only half the solution," said CSU Bundestag MP Andreas Scheuer. "It would be good if Seehofer takes over from Beckstein too."
Though almost unchallenged in the party, Mr Seehofer's road to the leadership will be complicated. The 59-year-old native of Ingolstadt is a popular figure with many party members, embodying the hearty Bavarian personality voters found lacking in Mr Huber and Mr Beckstein.
But he has many powerful enemies within the party: after a policy row four years ago, Mr Stoiber accused Mr Seehofer of "diametrically opposing CSU positions and values". Last year, Mr Seehofer failed in his attempt to succeed Mr Stoiber after news broke of his extramarital affair - and baby - with an assistant, shocking conservative voters in the largely Catholic Bavaria.
Mr Seehofer said yesterday that, after a 17-point poll drop since the last state election, the CSU needed to "stabilise itself in its unique near-half century of success and win back what's been lost".
There is little love lost between Mr Seehofer and German chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the CSU's sister party, the Christian Democrats (CDU).
The CSU is traditionally more left wing than the CDU on social and economic issues, and Mr Seehofer will be anxious to pick a few fights with the chancellor to establish his own credentials as leader and to revive the CSU's relatively low profile in the grand coalition.
Since Mr Stoiber's departure, the CSU has been an amiable coalition partner for Dr Merkel and any plans by Mr Seehofer to flex his political muscles in the coming months could complicate her re-election hopes next year.