牽手和分手來自同一雙手

cited from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4572387.stm--The regional election success for the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in North Rhine-Westphalia could be a springboard for party leader Angela Merkel.
Ms Merkel is likely to be the candidate to challenge German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Germany's next general election, which means she may have a good chance of becoming the country's first female chancellor.

Angela Merkel first came to prominence five years ago during a CDU party slush fund scandal.

She had strongly denied allegations that bribes were paid for the supply of tanks to Saudi Arabia, describing them as "totally absurd".

But, as the crisis deepened and the full scale of former chancellor Helmut Kohl's role in it became apparent, she was the first former Kohl ally to publicly break with the man who brought her into the cabinet.

'New Thatcher'

The move paid dividends and she was chosen to lead the party in April 2000.

Angela Merkel's success in the CDU has been unusual in a party dominated by tough, patriarchal men.


But initial concerns about whether traditionalists, especially the conservative Bavarian wing, would accept a woman as leader appear to have dissipated, leading some sections of the press to label her as Germany's Margaret Thatcher.
Ulrich Klinkert, her deputy when she headed the Environment Ministry in the mid-1990s, said she was a highly competent professional, but comparisons to the 'Iron Lady' were wide of the mark.

"It's too easy to say she is Germany's Margaret Thatcher - she is a little bit Margaret Thatcher and a little bit Tony Blair," he said.

Politically, she occupies more centrist ground on social issues such as abortion and legal rights for gay couples.


Her campaign is thought likely to focus on increasing the pace of reforming taxes, pensions and health - something her rival Mr Schroeder has tried to address in his Agenda 2010 for labour and social changes.

Role model

Although friends and colleagues describe the 50-year-old former physicist as a smart, determined woman, her supporters have also been working hard to give her a softer image since a poll last autumn branded her as "boring".

She plays down the gender issue and brushes off media gibes about her plain appearance and 'bowl-cut' hairstyle.

Some members of the CDU see Angela Merkel as something of a role model.

Katerina Reiche once said that Ms Merkel stands for family values, but not as the party has known it before.

"In former times, being married was important - now we talk of families being important, but not necessarily the marriage as an institution. Even in a gay relationship people take care of each other - that's a switch for a conservative party."

Born in Hamburg, Angela Merkel was only a couple of months old when her father, a Lutheran pastor, was given a parish in a small town in East Germany.

Survivor

She grew up in a rural area outside Berlin, and showed a great talent for maths, science and languages.

Ms Merkel earned a doctorate in physics but later worked as a chemist at a scientific academy in East Berlin.

In 1989 she became involved in the burgeoning democracy movement, and, after the Berlin Wall came down, she got a job as government spokeswoman following the first democratic elections.

She joined the CDU two months before the reunification of Germany and within three months she was in the Kohl cabinet as minister for women and youth.

In her political career to date she has outlasted four political bosses, in the east and west, and is the only prominent Ossi (easterner) to have survived near the top of the CDU.