Merkel overshadows party ahead of September election

Berlin : German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday formally launches her campaign to win a fourth term in a September parliamentary election more likely to be decided on personality than policy.

Challenger Martin Schulz of the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) is leading his campaign with "more social justice", promising reforms to tax, unemployment benefits and childcare after having just succeeded with a push to legalise same-sex marriage.

Merkel's centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has so far failed to counter its opponents' focused campaign with a unifying policy theme of its own.

Social media users last week mocked party secretary-general Peter Tauber's slogan "For a Germany where we live well and gladly", after he transformed the initial letters of the German phrase into an unpronounceable Twitter hashtag: #fedidwgugl.

Schulz, struggling to catch up with Merkel in the polls, last week shocked observers by accusing the chancellor of systematically refusing to debate him on the future of the country.

But the lacklustre CDU campaign does not appear to have hurt the re-election prospects of the veteran leader dubbed "Mutti" (Mummy) by German voters.