German parties formally sign coalition pact
The leaders of Germany's two main political parties yesterday formally signed an agreement forming the first left-right coalition government since the 1960s, with Angela Merkel to be the country's first female chancellor.
Merkel's Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats (SPD) of outgoing Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder were forced into a power-sharing agreement by inconclusive elections on September 18.
Merkel said her hope was that the incoming government would enable Germans to be better off in four years' time than they are today, in a country she said was in dire need of an economic upturn.
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