News Germany Weighs Next Move After Election

[Astronuc]

By GEIR MOULSON, Associated Press Writer

BERLIN - Conservative leader Angela Merkel and the chairman of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats said Monday they both had initiated contacts with potential coalition partners as they wrestled over what government will emerge from Germany's inconclusive parliamentary election.

Merkel urged her rival's party to "accept that they are not the strongest party" after Sunday's election and enter talks on a broad right-left alliance under her leadership. But within minutes, the chairman of the Social Democrats, Franz Muentefering, said he had written to other party leaders to invite them to hold talks on a new coalition.

"I have initiated contact with the offices" of the other parties, Merkel said.

She added that she, like Schroeder, would refuse to hold talks with the Left Party — an alliance of ex-communists and former Social Democrats angered by the chancellor's efforts to trim the welfare state.

Merkel is a physicist btw.

More at - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050919/ap_on_re_eu/germany_election

The rise of Angela Merkel - BBC

and

Angela Merkel received her degree in physics from the University of Leipzig and her Ph.D. from the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry, Academy of Sciences, in East Berlin.

from http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/281/5375/336

How cool is that?

 

[Lisa!]

I see why you're interested!