Angela Merkel to Become Germany`s First Female Chancellor

Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Angela Merkel (51) is set to be Germany’s next chancellor. She will be the first female chancellor in the German history.

The German public broadcasting company ZDF reported on Monday, quoting from an anonymous source, that chancellor Gerhard Schroeder from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), CDU leader Merkel, SPD leader Franz Muentefering, and Edmund Stoiber, head of the Christian Social Union (CSU), agreed that Merkel would be the next chancellor in a meeting held on October 9.

With this deal, Germany enters into a grand coalition at the federal-government level 36 years after the end of its first grand coalition in 1969. Germany formed a grand coalition from 1966 to 1969 under the chancellorship of Kurt Kiesinger for the first time in its history. With support from Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Merkel, from East Germany, became Minister for Women and Youth in 1991, and she was made Minister for the Environment in 1994. In 2000, she assumed the chairmanship of the CSU.

pisong@donga.com