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His centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) was shunned by voters in recent elections to the European parliament and is lagging well behind Merkel's conservatives in domestic opinion polls.

But this does not seem to perturb the 53-year-old, who was chosen by the SPD to take on Merkel, following a party reshuffle which saw Kurt Beck replaced as chairman by veteran Franz Muentefering.

Steinmeier sees a chance of forging a new alliance if Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) fail to win enough votes to jettison the SPD after four years of governing together in a grand coalition.

"The current surveys are not important," he told reporters, referring to latest opinion polls showing a combined total of 52 per cent for the CDU and its preferred partner, the business-oriented Free Democrats, (FDP).

The SPD, Europe's oldest leftist party, is trailing at an all-time low of 21 per cent, about the same as what it polled in the European elections held on June 7.

An alternative, he says, would be a coalition between the SPD and and environmentalist Greens, or a three-party alliance that would bring in the FDP.

But he ruled out any arrangement that would include the radical Left party, formed in 2007 by former East German communists and disgruntled Social Democrats from the west.

Steinmeier, who is vice-chancellor to Merkel, knows the election will be decided in favour of the party seen as having the best answers to dealing with Germany's economic woes.

The SPD election platform includes a call for tax cuts and state handouts for low income groups and families, financed by a tax on the rich and a levy on stock transactions.

It also envisages increased spending on education and measures designed to secure jobs.

Germany has weathered the economic crisis better than most countries, a fact the foreign minister attributes in no small part to the work of SPD ministers in Merkel's cabinet.

In office since November 2005, Steinmeier has been trying to position the party as in the centre of the political spectrum.

He is campaigning for parliament from a safe constituency in Brandenburg, near Berlin. Before becoming foreign minister, he coordinated the intelligence services under Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder.

For a long time, he was close to Merkel in the popularity stakes, profiting from his role as foreign minister, which kept him away from the rough-and-tumble of domestic party squabbles.

But that has changed lately. The latest survey showed him in fourth place in the popularity stakes, with only 18 per cent saying they would vote for him - his lowest rating since his nomination as candidate for chancellor in October 2008.

Steinmeier has been forced to defend his party's support for a 1.5-billion-euro (2.1 billion dollars) government bailout of troubled carmaker Opel and has been embroiled in a row over nuclear power.

He has called for the permanent closure of a nuclear plant at Kruemmel, near the northern part of Hamburg, which has been dogged by a series of technical difficulties and had to be shut down last week.

Some analysts believe that bringing nuclear energy into the election campaign could prove damaging to the Social Democrats.

"Focussing on this theme could alienate half the SPD voters," says Manfred Guellner, head of the research group Forsa, pointing out that 50 per cent of party supporters believe Germany needs nuclear energy.

Rising energy prices and concerns about energy supplies "have led to an increase in acceptance of atomic energy" among Germans, according to Klaus-Peter Schoepper of opinion pollster TNS Emnid.