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:
“His talk was like a spring, which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses:
It slipped from politics to puns,
It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws which keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.”
—Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mud stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique, violin player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)