Angela Merkel was sworn in as Germany’s first woman Chancellor before the Bundestag Lower House of Parliament following her formal election by the chamber on Tuesday.
The pastor’s daughter became Germany’s eighth post-war leader and the first person from the former communist east to take the helm of the reunited country.
“I swear that I will devote my strength to the welfare of the German people, increase their benefits, ward off harm to them, respect and defend the Constitution and the laws of the state, conscientiously fulfil my duties and practise justice toward every person,” she said.
Merkel (51) added the optional phrase “so help me God” at the end of the formal oath. Her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, had omitted it during his swearing-in as chancellor in 1998 and after his re-election in 2002.
The ceremony allows her to take office two months after a general election that gave her conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) a wafer-thin lead over Schröder’s Social Democrats (SPD).
The result is a power-sharing government grouping the two parties, with Merkel leading a Cabinet evenly divided between officials from the left and right.
She received an overwhelming majority — 397 of the 611 valid ballots — in the Bundestag vote early on Tuesday.
“Dear Dr Merkel, you are the first democratically elected female head of government in Germany. That sends a strong message to many women, and surely some men as well,” parliamentary Speaker Norbert Lammert said to laughter.
Schröder (61) was the first to shake her hand in congratulations.
Merkel cracked a small smile as the results were announced and appeared to fight back tears as the deputies applauded her.
At a separate ceremony after her election, President Horst Koehler received Merkel at Berlin’s Charlottenburg Palace.
“I wish you much luck, strength and God’s blessing,” he said.
Daunting task
The conservative faces a daunting task. The razor’s-edge result of the election underlined Germans’ rejection of her more radical economic reform plans in favour of one leavened with the SPD’s traditional leftist policies on the labour market and the social welfare system.
Merkel has set a goal of returning Germany to the top three countries in Europe for economic growth within 10 years and slashing the 11% unemployment rate during her four-year term.
“The goal is more jobs,” she said on Friday at the ceremonial signing of the coalition agreement titled Together for Germany — with Courage and Humanity.
“In four years, people must be able to say they are doing a bit better than they were.”
The statement was typical for the determined but self-effacing pastor’s daughter who lacks the charisma and occasional flamboyance of Schröder.
Merkel, a trained physicist, did not begin her political career until after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, leading many observers to brand her an “outsider” who may nevertheless be better able to transcend the often clubby world of German politics.
Transformation
She has undergone an astounding transformation since serving in the Cabinet of her mentor Helmut Kohl, who gave her the affectionate but condescending nickname “the girl”.
Merkel rocketed to the top of the party in 2000 after publicly calling for Kohl’s ouster — a brazen move that made her several powerful enemies.
Her biographer, Gerd Langguth, told public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk on Tuesday that Merkel is frequently underestimated.
“She always wanted to show the old guys at the CDU that she could do it,” he said.
“She is incredibly hard-working and disciplined. Her parents always told her, ‘Angela, you must be better than all the rest’ … and this being-better-than-the-others has marked her whole career.”
Despite frequent comparisons with Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, the constraints of the power-sharing government — Germany’s first since the 1960s — will keep her from forging a radical path akin to that of the “Iron Lady”.
Rather, she will be bound by the compromises hammered out in the coalition agreement, as well as by the demands of her “equal partner”, the Social Democrats.
Schröder, who finally relented in a bitter power struggle with Merkel after the September election, was to hand over the keys to the chancellery formally at 4pm GMT, with an inaugural Cabinet meeting scheduled an hour later.
Merkel will embark on Wednesday on a trip to Paris and then Brussels followed by London on Thursday, in three brief get-acquainted visits with Germany’s closest European allies.
Schröder, for his part, plans to relinquish his seat in Parliament on Wednesday and has said he wants to return to practising law. — AFP