Berlin - Germany's ailing Social Democratic Party (SPD) rung the changes Sunday, repositioning itself ahead of a general election just 12 months away by nominating charismatic Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to take on the popular Christian Democrat (CDU) chancellor, Angela Merkel.

The SPD leadership also recalled a 68-year-old veteran to reorganize the demoralized party machine in the shape of Franz Muentefering, who is to replace Kurt Beck, the embattled premier of Rhineland-Palatinate, as SPD federal chairman.

While Steinmeier's nomination as chancellor-candidate ahead of Beck had long been anticipated, Muentefering's return to top-level SPD politics came as a bombshell.

Both decisions signal a clear shift towards the centre ground of German politics and away from any flirtation with the socialist Left Party.

The double decision emphatically revives the era of Gerhard Schroeder, the SPD chancellor who preceded Merkel and who is associated with pragmatic pro-market reforms at home and a foreign policy strongly independent of the United States.

Steinmeier was Schroeder's chief of staff virtually throughout the seven years of his chancellorship, while Muentefering, serving initially as labour minister and then as head of the SPD caucus in parliament, played a key role in pushing through Schroeder's controversial reform package.

The moves are an attempt to revive the fortunes of the traditional party of the German left, which is currently hovering near 25 per cent in the opinion polls under Beck's lacklustre leadership.

By contrast, Steinmeier has the highest popularity rating of any German politician, hitting a 67-per-cent "satisfaction" rating in a poll last week conducted for national public broadcaster ARD, ahead of Merkel on 63 per cent.

Muentefering, who disappeared from the political stage last year to care for his terminally ill wife, came in at an astonishing 62 per cent, following a barnstorming speech to the party faithful in Munich's Hofbraeukeller in the middle of the week. Beck was off the scale.

In the speech, made ahead of the Bavarian states election at the end of this month, Muentefering highlighted Schroeder's achievements, urging SPD members to be proud of his "Agenda 2010" reforms.

The programme, which slashed Germany's generous social benefits system, are credited with cutting unemployment by 2 million over the past three years and with setting the federal budget on course for balance by 2011.

Muentefering's Munich speech was a clear attack on those on the left of the SPD, who are scathing about the effects of Agenda 2010 on the marginalized in German society.

The Steinmeier-Muentefering duo is unlikely to court the Left Party, which draws its main support in the formerly communist eastern states but has eaten away at the SPD's traditional base in western states in state elections over the past year.

Beck had put out indirect feelers to the Left by giving his grudging approval to the SPD in the western state of Hesse to seek an accommodation with the socialists, with the aim of propelling SPD leftwinger Andrea Ypsilanti into the premiership after an inconclusive state election in January.

Beck's zig-zag course, following a clear pledge by Ypsilanti ahead of the election not to do any kind of deal with the Left, saw SPD poll ratings fall as low as 20 per cent - the lowest since World War II - and provoked a crisis within the party.

While clearly buttressing the SPD's "reform" wing, Sunday's moves present risks. Although popular with the wider electorate, Steinmeier has not come up through the SPD ranks and lacks the kind of backing within the party that Beck enjoys.

And the combative Muentefering's clear advocacy of the Schroeder reforms could further alienate those who feel left out of German society and drive them into the hands of the Left, which the ARD poll put on 13 per cent support.

Merkel's aim is to withdraw from the unwieldy "grand coalition" with the SPD after the September 2009 elections and form an alliance with the liberal FDP, her conservative Christian CDU/CSU bloc's traditional partner.

Speaking a day ahead of the SPD reshuffle, she termed her coalition partner "unreliable" and pushed for an alliance with the FDP. The same ARD poll put the CDU/CSU on 36 per cent and the FDP on 11, well short of a majority in the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag.

With the SPD on 26 per cent and its preferred partner, the Greens, on 10, the Left holds the balance with 13 per cent, despite being formed only last year. (dpa)