German election: FDP takes first painful steps to recovery The beleaguered liberal FDP, thrown out of parliament in Sunday's German elections, is taking its first painful steps on the long road to recovery. Chairman Philipp Rösler announced plans on Monday to resign and take responsibility for the party's worst result since its foundation in 1948. Christian Lindner, the FDP's young star, declared himself ready to step into Mr Rösler's shoes. But the liberals will struggle to get back into the national political ring. As well as trying to re-establish their credibility, and winning back votes lost to Angela Merkel's triumphant CDU/CSU, the liberals have to confront the new force in German politics - the eurosceptic AfD, which came within a whisker of taking the FDP's place in parliament. "They definitely have the opportunity to recover but we think that whether they can take it depends on the leadership," said Renate Köcher, director of the Allensbach Institute, a political research organisation. The FDP's fate will be carefully watched by the EU's only other big liberal party - the hard-pressed British Liberal Democrats. The UK party is a junior partner in a coalition, as the FDP was. If the Lib Dems meet the same fate, Europe's liberals will be consigned to the political margins. The FDP received one sliver of good news early on Monday: contrary to exit polls, it managed to win enough votes in the elections in the western state of Hesse, held in parallel with the national poll, to keep its regional assembly seats. But that was of little comfort to the party's 93 Berlin MPs or their 500 aides, many of whom will struggle to find jobs. Mr Lindner, the 34-year-old party chief in the industrial state of North Rhine-Westphalia, said the FDP needed "reflection and reorganisation." Party officials argue that there is no shortage of liberals in Germany, with Mr Rösler putting the party's potential vote at 15-20 per cent, compared with Sunday's all-time low of 4.8 per cent. The party indeed won a record 14.6 per cent of votes in 2009. But the FDP failed to keep this support because it did not carry out promised tax reforms; tolerated squabbles over the degree of euroscepticism in its policies; and, finally, fought a poor campaign. Peter Matuschek, head of political research at the Forsa Polling Institute said voters did not lose their faith in FDP principles, such as an effective tax system, but in the party's capacity to deliver. The main beneficiary was Ms Merkel, who won 2.1m of the 3.8m votes lost by the FDP. Many came from conservative voters who had traditionally split the two votes they have under the German system between the CDU and the FDP. They wanted to have the FDP keep a check on the CDU, especially when it came to the public finances. But the incompetence of FDP leaders put them off. About 430,000 FDP votes went to the AfD, the biggest single source of the eurosceptic group's votes. Launched this year, the AfD scored 4.7 per cent by focusing almost entirely on one proposal - to break up the eurozone. The party hopes to make more gains in the 2014 European parliament elections, where the entry threshold is only 3 per cent. Bernd Lucke, the Hamburg economics professor who leads the party, said on Monday: "When the voters are unhappy with policies on the euro, that will bring further shifts in the vote." Richard Hilmer, head of the Infratest polling agency, said the AfD's problem would be to build a broader base by moving beyond the euro to domestic issues. The party's political critics see it as a rightwing party in the making, which would pin a dangerous label on the AfD. Mr Lucke denies that he is to the right of the CDU. But he has yet to specify where on the spectrum he stands. Germany has seen other protest parties come and go, including the radical Pirates party, founded in 2006, which has failed to enter parliament. Only two new parties have established themselves as national forces in the past 25 years - the Greens and the leftwing Linke. Mr Lucke has his work cut out, even with the help of disgruntled liberals. Wunderkind in hurry to put party back on track It must have been particularly tough for FDP chairman Philipp Rösler to announce his resignation, knowing that he is almost certainly making way for Christian Lindner. After all, until very recently, the 40-year-old party head saw himself as the FDP's rising young star. And now he must step aside for a rival aged just 34. Mr Lindner is a man in a hurry. At the age of 21, he was the youngest member of the regional assembly in North Rhine-Westphalia, where he was born and brought up. At 25, he was regional general secretary and at 30 a Berlin MP and national general secretary. He resigned from the general secretary post last year after a party dispute over the euro crisis. Mr Linder, was seen as trying to stop an attempt to make the party more eurosceptic. His wunderkind reputation has endeared him to ambitious younger liberals but generated resentment among some older party members whose egos he may have dented. But they will be grateful if Mr Linder achieves his aim of returning the FDP to parliament in the next election in 2017. It is no surprise that, in his spare time, Mr Linder races fast cars.