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How did Angela Merkel become Germany’s leader of the opposition after the 2002 election?
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Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel, the first woman to serve as chancellor of Germany, 2012.
Angela Merkel became the leader of the opposition following the 2002 federal election because she was the head of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at the time the CDU-CSU coalition narrowly lost the contest to the incumbent government led by Gerhard Schröder and the Social Democratic Party of Germany.1
Although Merkel had hoped to be the chancellor candidate for the 2002 election, the majority of her party preferred Edmund Stoiber of the Christian Social Union (CSU) to lead the ticket. Following the coalition's narrow defeat in September 2002, Merkel, as the leader of the CDU, assumed the role of leader of the opposition in the Bundestag.12