BERLIN, Sept 23: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder faces the task of reforming Europe’s largest economy with a sharply reduced majority after he and his Greens coalition partners narrowly won Sunday’s general election.

“We have difficult times ahead,” a visibly merry Schroeder called to his jubilant Social Democrat (SPD) supporters early on Monday after voters cut his majority over the combined opposition parties to nine from 21 at the last election.

According to the provisional final result, Schroeder’s SPD fell 2.4 points to 38.5 percent as voters punished it for failing to bring down unemployment, which remains stuck above four million, in its first term.

It was level with Edmund Stoiber’s conservatives, who gained 3.4 points to 38.5 percent. But a surge by the Greens, who gained 1.9 points to 8.6 percent, rescued the Red-Green coalition’s majority, albeit a reduced one.

Stoiber’s prospective allies, the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), let him down by gaining just 7.4 percent, far short of their own expectations.—Reuters