Angela Merkel

Last September 27 was election Sunday and all Germany was called to vote for the new Federal German Parliament (Bundestag). The political landscape has changed much in the last decades and the number of parties running for parliament has increased. Back some 20 years ago Germany had two main parties, the Conservatives on the right wing, being CDU/CSU and the Social-Democrats, SPD, on the left. The Liberal Democratic Party, FDP, kept a minority of votes, but used to be the "Government-Makers" as their votes made one of the main parties gain the needed 50+ majority. Things have changed, and many more parties have entered the scenery today. Thus it has become less predictable who will finally be in government, as that indeed depends on coalition negotiations only after elections. One thing however seemed to be clear even before that: Angela Merkel would most probably remain in office, and in fact, last Sunday, September 27 the Conservative Party and its number one candidate for Chancellor, Angela Merkel, gained the majority of votes and was thus the party to provide the new chancellor: Angela Merkel.

Who is Angela Merkel, one might ask, and what made the Germans place their confidence in her?

Angela Merkel, the new, but also the former Chancellor is the first woman in Germany who ever felt the power of being the person of policy-making in Germany. The first lady on a "guy's seat", and all she says about that is: "I was never a man, and so I cannot say how other it could have gone. I think things go well, and I enjoy that they do."

That indeed Merkel enjoys her job was already visible in 2005, when her party won the elections and she was then elected Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany by the new parliament. It was a long fight for acknowledgement, mainly in her own party. She was the lady from the "East", and the guys form the "West" were not really benevolent towards her, but oftentimes disapproved of her doing and her person, yet the common prejudices seemed to not fit her. So finally those voices neutralized themselves. Angela Merkel has already become the Conservative Party, the Conservative Party has become Angela Merkel. She has learned to well deal with the media, she shows up with the mighty in the world, like in Obama's visit to the concentration camp Buchenwald, June 2009. Here the politician and the person Angela Merkel were one. The same refers to her fight regarding the global warming.

Her greatest challenge was and remains the economic crisis. She has wrapped and tied packages for trade and business, has pumped billions into banks and economy, has given the people of Germany an unprecedented promise: "We are telling the savers that their deposits are safe. Even for this the Federal Government vouches for." Success is expected from her.