BERLIN — Italian President Giorgio Napolitano canceled a dinner with the German opposition's chancellor candidate on Wednesday after he described Italian former premier Silvio Berlusconi and comic-turned-politician Beppe Grillo as "clowns."

Peer Steinbrueck, a Social Democrat who will take on Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany's next national election in September, has a reputation for gaffes, and his remark created the first diplomatic incident of his accident-prone campaign.

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Steinbrueck said on Tuesday he was "appalled that two clowns have won" Italy's Feb. 24-25 election. The vote was actually inconclusive with no party gaining a majority, although Grillo's protest party surged dramatically.

Napolitano, an 87-year-old former communist with no natural affinity for Berlusconi or Grillo, now faces the difficult task of trying to appoint a coalition government.

Italian media said he had expressed concern about "populism" after the election result in a private meeting during his visit to Germany, but these comments could not be confirmed.

As head of state, he may have felt duty-bound to defend the dignity of Italy's political institutions.

The German candidate's spokesman said Napolitano canceled "because of Steinbrueck's remarks on Tuesday" and added that the Social Democrat politician "understood Napolitano's domestic political reasons for canceling."

Napolitano's spokesman was unavailable for comment.

Napolitano and Steinbrueck had been scheduled to meet over dinner at a Berlin hotel. Napolitano, who visited Munich on Tuesday and Wednesday, was due to meet Merkel in the German capital on Thursday.

'Testosterone boost'
Steinbrueck made it absolutely clear in his comments to a party rally in Potsdam he was referring to Grillo and Berlusconi, calling the latter "clearly a clown with a testosterone boost."

"My impression is that two populists won," he said.

Berlusconi, a scandal-ridden billionaire media mogul, is very unpopular in Germany and is assailed often in the media.

But Steinbrueck did himself no favors with his frank talk.

German politicians are expected to strike a serious tone and refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of European partners. On Twitter, some commentators dismissed the acerbic Steinbrueck as the "real clown."

Italy's elections, which threaten to tip the euro zone back into crisis, showed a big swell in support for Grillo's 5-Star Movement and a surprisingly strong result for Berlusconi. He had been expected to lose heavily to the center left, which won the lower house but not the senate.

Both Grillo and Berlusconi campaigned against the austerity measures implemented by technocrat Prime Minister Mario Monti at the urging of Germany's conservative chancellor Merkel.

Grillo, in his popular blog, laid into Merkel for imposing German-style fiscal austerity on Italy. Berlusconi has made more personal attacks on Merkel, whom he blames for his fall from power in 2011 because of her hesitancy on bailouts.

Berlusconi, who has been sentenced for tax fraud and is on trial accused of having sex with an under-aged prostitute, is reported to have made rude remarks about Merkel's appearance in a phone call wiretapped by investigators, though he denies this.

Steinbrueck made waves with undiplomatic statements when he served as finance minister under Merkel between 2005 and 2009, for example referring to the Swiss as Indians running scared from the cavalry during a crackdown he led on tax havens.

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German lawmakers elected Joachim Gauck, a former Lutheran pastor and human rights activist from communist East Germany, as president of the European Union's largest country on Sunday by a large majority in a first round of voting.

Norbert Lammert, speaker of the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, said Gauck, 72, had won 991 votes in the federal assembly of national and regional lawmakers that is charged with choosing Germany's largely ceremonial head of state.

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His main rival, former Nazi-hunter and journalist Beate Klarsfeld, won 126 votes.

Chancellor Angela Merkel reluctantly accepted Gauck for the mainly ceremonial post after her coalition ally joined opposition parties last month in backing him to replace Christian Wulff, who resigned in a scandal over financial favors.

Unlike Wulff, a former lawmaker from Merkel's ruling centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), the 72-year-old Gauck has no party affiliation. But he is known for speaking his mind - with the eloquence of a seasoned preacher - on controversial issues.

Eighty percent of Germans trust Gauck, a former Lutheran pastor and human rights activist, according to an opinion poll by Infratest published on Saturday.

Yet two thirds said they thought he would be an "uncomfortable" president for the country's political parties.

In Germany, the president is chosen not by voters but by a special federal assembly comprising all 620 members of the Bundestag lower house of parliament and an equal number of delegates from the country's 16 regions.

Gauck's election is assured as he has the support of the three ruling coalition parties including the CDU and of the opposition Social Democrats and Greens.

"We expect a big majority (for Gauck)," said Frank-Walter Steinmeier, leader of the opposition Social Democrats.

His only opponent is Beate Klarsfeld, 73, an anti-Nazi activist endorsed by the small Left Party.

The German head of state has little executive power but is supposed to provide moral leadership, a role for which Gauck, a prominent figure in the peaceful protest movement that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, seems well-suited.

"The president of the federal republic must be the guardian of the soul of our nation," said Sunday's edition of the top-selling daily Bild which also backed Gauck for the job in 2010.

"Gauck's most important task is to restore dignity to this considerably tarnished office."

Merkel and Gauck both hail from formerly Communist East Germany where her father was also a clergyman. They are said to have a good personal rapport, but she blocked a bid to install him as president in 2010 in favor of the ill-fated Wulff.

Gauck has a rich life story shaped by the Cold War. When he was 11 his father was sent to the Siberian Gulag for alleged espionage and did not return for four years.

That experience fostered an abiding aversion to totalitarianism, and he has said freedom will be the leitmotif of his presidency.

After the fall of Communism and Germany's reunification, Gauck oversaw the archives of the dreaded Stasi, the East German secret police, earning recognition for exposing their crimes.

As a purely symbolic head of state, Gauck poses no threat to Merkel's domination of German politics. But his moral authority and rhetorical gifts may dim some of her luster on the public stage.

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