Politics
Ursula von der Leyen joined the CDU in 1990, and became active in politics in 1999, entering local politics in 2001 in the area of Hanover. She was elected to the Parliament of Lower Saxony in 2003, and from 2003 to 2005 she was a cabinet minister in the state government of Lower Saxony in the cabinet of Christian Wulff, responsible for social affairs, women, family and health. In 2005 she was appointed Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth in the cabinet of Angela Merkel.
She was elected to the Bundestag, the Parliament of Germany, in the 2009 federal election. Ursula von der Leyen succeeded Franz Josef Jung as Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs on 30 November 2009. She was initially considered the front runner for the nomination of the ruling CDU/CSU and FDP parties for President of Germany in the 2010 election, but eventually Christian Wulff was chosen as the candidate.
Read more about this topic: Ursula Von Der Leyen
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs.”
—Peter B. Medawar (1915–1987)
“Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.”
—Peggy Noonan (b. 1950)
“Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.”
—Richard M. Nixon (b. 1913)