German former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (R) leaves after presenting flowers to Christian Democrat (CDU) leader Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin November 22, 2005. Merkel, 51, was elected Germany's first woman chancellor on Tuesday in a parliamentary vote that ended months of political uncertainty and puts her atop a fragile coalition that must prove it can revive the economy. She becomes Germany's eighth postwar chancellor and first to have grown up in the ex-communist east. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay