HANOVER, Germany, Mar 2: A surprisingly broad victory by Gerhard Schroeder, a popular moderate with telegenic cnarm, has given Germany's opposition new hope that it can finally drive Chancellor Helmut Kohl from office after 16 years of conservative rule, reports AP.

Fresh from a reelection triumph in his home state, the 53-year-old Lower Saxony governor is to get the Social Democratic party's nomination today to run against Kohl, Germany's longest-serving leader this century.

Schroeder is counting on Germany's yearning for change to lift him to the nation's top job in the September 27 election. The winner will lead the government's historic move back to Berlin and take Europe's largest nation into the new millennium.