After a resounding defeat in the highly representative German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Gerhard Schröder has called for an early general election...which inspired the Munich newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, to describe him as a student of Machiavelli and political virtuoso. If his government loses the confidence vote next month, one possible outcome could be the first female German Chancellor (by mid-September).
“When the wall fell,
Angela Merkel was 35 years old – an East German woman who had learned mistrust and caution as a survival strategy under socialism...Not many East Germans have approached influence and prestige throughout Germany, women least of all.”
--Hans-Joachim Maaz, Cicero Magazin für Politische Kultur
Her motto is “Politics without falsehood” (
Politik ohne Lüge). She is a physicist by training, and the first woman to chair a major German party since 1949. She joined the Demokratische Aufbruch, one of the civil rights groups formed in the GDR after the Berlin wall fell in 1989. In a reunited Germany she has served as federal minister for women and youth, before becoming minister for environmental affairs and nuclear power station security.
“Behind the girlish impression of the eternally good daughter hides an intelligent politician with a downright predatory instinct for power.”
--Christine Eichel, Cicero Magazin für Politische Kultur
I like the fact that she (supposedly) considers my family equal to all others, something Bavarian governor Edmund Stoiber—a devout Catholic, whose motto is “Handeln statt reden” (action not talk)—most definitely does not. She also happens to speak very clearly.
The scariest things about her?...She is conservative and human.
