Germany’s former Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier tried to win the hearts of his centre-left opposition party yesterday with an attack on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition and a vow to win back power in next year’s election.

The country is in agony with this coalition

Mr Steinmeier, one of three Social Democrat (SPD) leaders jostling to lead the party into the 2013 election, delivered an uncharacteristically rousing speech to 700 SPD officials at a conference, in what sounded like an audition for the top job.

“We’re going to fight to win, not for second place,” Steinmeier said, dismissing suspicions the SPD would be content as junior coalition partners in another grand coalition with Merkel’s conservatives. “We want to lead in a coalition with the Greens, a coalition that will point Germany towards the future.”

The SPD will formally pick a candidate in January to run against Merkel in the election due in September 2013. Also in the running is SPD Chairman Sigmar Gabriel and ex-Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck.

Often criticised for a colourless and cerebral style, Steinmeier was full of fight during his hour-long address, drawing enthusiastic applause for bashing Merkel and her squabbling coalition which he said was squandering a solid foundation laid by the last SPD-led government.

“The country is in agony with this coalition,” he said.

“Wherever you look they’re fighting each other. This coalition has been together for three years but they still haven’t formed a working government. They’re blowing the headstart for Germany we created for them.”

The SPD’s Zukunftskongress, or conference on the future, is debating policies the party will take into the campaign.

Having ousted Merkel’s CDU in three of Germany’s 16 state elections in 2011 and 2012, the SPD has said it wants to raise taxes on the rich if it wins back power in 2013.