German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier set out Sunday his bid to wrest leadership of Germany away from Chancellor Angela Merkel at a general election this September 27, according to dpa. Steinmeier, who is a deputy leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), is the party's official nominee for the post. Addressing 2,000 supporters in a Berlin hall in what was effectively the opening shot of his campaign, he said he represented a "fresh start towards something better" in Germany. "It's seething in this country. So much fury and outrage is building up. The sense of justice of so many people is offended," he said in a reference to the world economic crisis, which he blamed on "the pursuit of maximum profit." "It cries out to be fixed," he said. Currently the SPD and Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) are ruling Germany jointly as a coalition. Leaders of the SPD had met in Berlin on Saturday to approve an election manifesto designed to win over voters with more spending. Key points of the platform are tax cuts and state handouts for low-income groups and families with children to be financed in part by a tax on the rich and a levy on stock transactions. The centre-left SPD is seeking to distance itself from Merkel's conservative CDU after four years of relative harmony. Campaigning is expected to be dominated by the fallout from the economic crisis, which has hit key sectors of German industry and put tens of of thousands of workers on reduced hours with less pay. The election manifesto is to be presented for approval to a party congress in Berlin on June 14.
