BERLIN, Oct 3: Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder signalled on Monday he may be ready to give up power two weeks after Germany’s most inconclusive post-war election, saying he would accept whatever his party decides.

For the first time since his Social Democrats (SPD) finished behind Angela Merkel’s conservatives in the Sept. 18 election that produced a hung parliament, Schroeder said he would not stand in the way if a stable government could be formed by the two main parties.

The Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), won 226 parliament seats to 222 for the SPD, leaving each side well short of a majority. The two rivals have been warily edging towards a ‘grand coalition’.

Schroeder, in power since 1998, said on Monday he was fighting to stay in the chancellery on behalf of the SPD and its centre-left policies — and not for his own personal ambitions.

“It is not about my claim and definitely not about me,” Schroeder told RTL television in a brief interview to be broadcast on Monday and made available to Reuters.

“It is about my party’s claim to the political leadership and that can only be decided by the party’s executive. I will accept every decision that it makes. I will not stand in the way of anything that would lead to a continuation of the reform processes that I started, and a stable government in Germany.”

Schroeder, who later repeated his comments to journalists on his way into a meeting of the SPD executive, vowed on Sept. 18 not to let his party join a government led by Merkel, whose CDU/CSU suffered an abrupt fall in the campaign’s final week.

However, his words appeared to confirm speculation that the SPD was using Schroeder as a bargaining chip to gain leverage with the CDU/CSU in a battle over policies, ministries and parliament posts — a game Schroeder happily has joined.

SPD chairman Franz Muentefering earlier signalled a readiness to compromise with the CDU over the leadership issue. He said the SPD still wanted Schroeder to lead a ‘grand coalition’ but said the demand was negotiable.

“We are in favour of Gerhard Schroeder as chancellor but this will be discussed as part of the entire package in negotiations,” Muentefering said after the CDU picked up one more seat in a late-voting district in Dresden on Sunday.

Asked if he were sure Schroeder would remain chancellor, Muentefering added: “At the moment that’s not been clarified.”

Analysts jumped on that as a sign the SPD was ready for a deal.

Merkel said after a German Unification Day ceremony she was optimistic that Sunday’s final chapter of the election in Dresden on Sunday would pave the way for productive talks.

“It’s a good result for the CDU and I’m counting on forces of reason in the SPD to come forward now so that things can proceed in an orderly manner,” she said.

The SPD and CDU had been treading water for the past two weeks, in part to wait for the last of 299 districts to vote after a local candidate died, and talks could still take a long time.

Merkel and Schroeder each claimed a mandate to lead Germany after the Sept. 18 election. Both have, at least in theory, other coalition options with three smaller parties.—Reuters