GERMANY:GERMANY'S SOCIAL Democratic Party (SPD) has hit a new opinion poll low of just 22 per cent, as personality and policy wrangles diminish the party's prospects of success in next year's general election.
The usual August lull in Berlin's government quarter has been shattered by an internal SPD row over plans to expel the former economics minister Wolfgang Clement. He was an ally of Gerhard Schröder, architect of his unpopular economic reforms and a controversial figure in the SPD.
Since retiring from politics in 2006, he has incensed SPD members with regular interviews contradicting agreed party lines. In January, ahead of an important regional election, he said that, in its current state, he saw no reason to vote for the SPD.
Last week, Mr Clement's local party branch voted to expel him for "violating party solidarity". The former minister is fighting the decision before an SPD national committee makes a binding decision.
But Göttingen-based political scientist Peter Lösche says the Clement row is a "political catastrophe" for the SPD. "Clement stands for the political middle-ground, territory the SPD needs to retain if it's to be taken seriously as a large party," he said.
Whatever Mr Clement's final fate, the affair is another setback for the luckless SPD leader Kurt Beck. The bearded, rotund Rhinelander is touring the country in the hope of reversing the losing streak that has blighted his two-year tenure as leader.
Even before the Clement drama, Mr Beck's summer tour was overshadowed by news that the SPD has, for the first time in its history, fewer members than Chancellor Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU).
Despite years of overall decline, German party membership numbers are still seen as a bellwether of political health. After the Schröder-era exodus in protest at economic reforms, the SPD is still losing 1,600 members a month or 9,600 members this year to June.
Meanwhile the CDU has become Germany's strongest party, with 531,000 members, for the first time in its 63-year history.
Its good fortunes are reflected in an opinion poll in this morning's Stern magazine: with its current support of 38 per cent, the CDU under Dr Merkel could return to power with its traditional Free Democrat coalition partners, currently on 11 per cent.
With the general election a year away, Mr Beck now faces a make-or-break decision: whether to run as challenger to Chancellor Merkel.
Considering the party's recent fortunes, the SPD candidacy is viewed by many leading SPD figures, for the moment at least, as a poisoned chalice.
"It's clear that, in the last while, we in the SPD haven't done ourselves any favours," admits Andrea Nahles, an SPD deputy leader. "Now we have a year to convince voters that we aren't just obsessed with navel-gazing."