• Schaeuble faced with rebuilding morale
• 'We must open up for new issues'
• Party urged to unite
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BONN, Germany (AP) -- Faced with their worst defeat in postwar German elections, the conservative Christian Democrats chose a new leader Saturday to guide them into a future without Helmut Kohl.

Kohl gave up his grip on the party chairman's job in a tearful farewell, the last act in a 16-year era that ended when voters dumped him as chancellor on September 27. Some 1,000 party delegates elected his hand-picked successor, Wolfgang Schaeuble, to the post that Kohl held for a quarter- century.

Tears glistened on Kohl's jowls as one of his closest aides, former Labor Minister Norbert Bluem, praised his historic achievements, topped by German unification in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Schaeuble faced with rebuilding morale

Schaeuble, 56, faces the task of rebuilding morale and focusing the party on new ideas, something Kohl resisted during his long tenure.

In his convention speech, he promised to make the Christian Democrats a strong opposition to the new center-left government of Social Democrats and environmentalist Greens, who won on a promise to fight unemployment.

He attacked election victor Gerhard Schroeder as "the chancellor of randomness" for leading Germany to the left despite a centrist platform, and he vowed to oppose government plans to ease citizenship rules to help integrate immigrants.

'We must open up for new issues'

But he also chipped away at Kohl's legacy, making clear that the Christian Democrats had lost touch with voters during his overbearing reign.

"We must open up for new issues and thinking," he declared. "The CDU must regain its ability to campaign." That could include reaching out to labor unions and ecology-minded voters, he said.

Another task, he said, was regaining voters in economically struggling eastern Germany, the formerly communist area where the Christian Democrats were routed despite Kohl's image as the "father of German unity."

Schaeuble was Germany's most popular politician in pre-election polls. A loyal Kohl protˇgˇ who suppressed his own yearning for the chancellorship, he has been in a wheelchair since an assassin shot him during campaigning in 1990. As chairman, he will also keep his job as the party's leader in parliament.

Party urged to unite

Running unopposed for chairman, Schaeuble got strong support from delegates, polling 93 percent of the votes.

The Christian Democrats are only beginning the debate on their future after their worst showing in national elections since 1949. It hardly surfaced at Saturday's meeting, where the focus was on installing a new leadership team.

Schaeuble said the Christian Democrats must stay united behind their core values -- the free market, European unity, law and order, and a commitment to social justice rooted in Christianity.

Kohl, 68, urged his party to fight to regain power.

"Let us not give in to pressure to run after changing trends of political fashion," he said. "We need a renewal that will bear new fruit -- not one that rips out the roots."

He smiled and waved from the podium as delegates gave him a final, five-minute standing ovation.

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