Succes 2011: Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany and Chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)

Angela Dorothea Merkel (born 17 July 1954) is the Chancellor of Germany and Chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

A physical chemist by professional background, Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989 and briefly served as a government spokesperson for Lothar de Maizière's democratically elected East German government prior to the Reunification of Germany. Following the reunification in 1990, she was elected to the Bundestag, where she has represented the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern since. She served as Federal Minister for Women and Youth 1991–1994 and as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety 1994–1998 in Helmut Kohl's fourth and fifth cabinet. She was Secretary General of the CDU 1998–2000, and was elected chairperson in 2000. From 2002 to 2005, she was also chair of the CDU/CSU parliamentary coalition.

After her election as Chancellor following the 2005 federal election, she led a grand coalition consisting of her own CDU party, its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), until 2009. In the 2009 federal election, the CDU obtained the largest share of the votes, and formed a coalition government with the CSU and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP). In 2007, Merkel was also President of the European Council and chaired the G8. She played a central role in the negotiation of the Treaty of Lisbon and the Berlin Declaration. In domestic policy, health care reform and problems concerning future energy development have thus far been major issues of her tenure.
Merkel is the first female Chancellor of Germany. In 2007, she became the second woman to chair the G8, after Margaret Thatcher. In November 2011 she became the longest-serving leader of a G8 country. Forbes has named her the fourth most powerful person in the world as of 2011.The first cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in at 16:00 CET, on 22 November 2005.

On 31 October 2005, after the defeat of his favoured candidate for the position of Secretary General of the SPD, Franz Müntefering indicated that he would resign as Chairman of the party in November, which he did. Ostensibly responding to this, Edmund Stoiber (CSU), who was originally nominated for the Economics and Technology post, announced his withdrawal on 1 November 2005. While this was initially seen as a blow to Merkel's attempt at forming a viable coalition and cabinet, the manner in which Stoiber withdrew earned him much ridicule and severely undermined his position as a Merkel rival. Separate conferences of the CDU, CSU, and SPD approved the proposed Cabinet on 14 November 2005

The second cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in on 28 October 2009.
As a female politician from a centre right party who is also a scientist, Merkel has been compared by many in the English-language press to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Some have referred to her as "Iron Lady", "Iron Girl", and even "The Iron Frau" (all alluding to Thatcher, whose nickname was "The Iron Lady"—Thatcher also has a science degree: an Oxford University degree in chemistry). Political commentators have debated the precise extent to which their agendas are similar. Later in her tenure, Merkel acquired the nickname "Mutti" (a familiar form of 'mother'), said by Der Spiegel to refer to an idealised mother figure from the 1950s and 1960s.

In addition to being the first female German chancellor, the first to represent a Federal Republic of Germany that included the former East Germany (though she was born in the West and moved to the East a few weeks after her birth, when her father decided to return to East Germany as a Lutheran pastor[73]), and the youngest German chancellor since the Second World War, Merkel is also the first born after World War II, and the first chancellor of the Federal Republic with a background in natural sciences. She studied physics; her predecessors studied law, business or history or were military officers, among others.