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| There is something about this woman I like. I just can't put my finger on what it is... |
The last possible obstacle to her nomination fell when CSU leader Edmund Stoiber backed her at a meeting of the parties' top officials. Stoiber had beaten off a challenge from Merkel to be the opposition candidate at the 2002 general election, but lost that vote to Schröder who was re-elected for a second term as chancellor. Standing alongside Merkel, Stoiber told a gathering of party workers and the media that her nomination had been unanimous and she had "the full mandate and the full support of the CSU and CDU." "I am going to do everything I can to help you become Germany's first woman chancellor," Stoiber said. A leading CSU official, Michael Glos, said on Monday that Stoiber would take up a "leading role alongside Merkel."
To the sound of rapturous applause, Merkel said her priority would be to reduce German unemployment, which is hovering around the five million mark. "Germany no longer needs an Agenda 2010, it needs an Agenda for Work," she said, referring to Schröder's largely unpopular program of economic reforms. She said the CDU would adopt its election program at a party conference in Dortmund on August 28, while the CSU would do the same in early September, possibly just two weeks before the election.