linguistic:paraphrasing, structural:expansion
Chairperson of the CDU

On 10 April 2000, Merkel was elected to replace Schäuble as Chairperson of the CDU, becoming the first female leader of a German party. Her election surprised many observers, as her personality offered a contrast to the party she had been elected to lead; Merkel is a centrist Protestant originating from predominantly Protestant northern Germany, while the CDU is a male-dominated, socially conservative party with strongholds in western and southern Germany, and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, has deep Catholic roots.

Following Merkel's election as CDU Leader, the CDU did not obtain electoral victories in subsequent state elections. In February 2001, her rival Friedrich Merz voiced his intention to become Gerhard Schröder 's main challenger for Chancellorship in the 2002 election. Merkel's own ambition to become Chancellor was well-known, but she lacked the support of the most influential members within her own party. Rival candidate and leader of the CSU Edmund Stoiber was much more popular within the party at the time. In a private negotiation that came to be known as the Wolfratshausen Breakfast, Merkel agreed to cede the opportunity to challenge Schröder to Stoiber; in exchange, she was to become leader of the CDU/CSU faction in the Bundestag following the election. Although pre-election polling had indicated that voters strongly favoured Stoiber, he went on to lose the election by a thin margin. The election campaign was dominated by the Iraq War. While Chancellor Schröder had made clear he would not join the war in Iraq, Merkel was in support of the war at the time, although she later claimed that she had opposed it.