Christian Wulff
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- See also Christian Wolff.
Christian Wulff
(born June 19, 1959 in Osnabrück) is a German politician (CDU) and Premier (Ministerpräsident) of Lower Saxony since March 4, 2003.
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[edit] Education and early years
Wulff grew up without a father and with his mother suffering from illness. After completing his Abitur at the Ernst Moritz Arndt - High School in Osnabrück, Wulff went to study law with a specialisation in economics at the University of Osnabrück. In 1987 and 1990, he passed the examinations mandatory for working as a solicitor and has since been in this profession.
[edit] Political career
Since 1975, Wulff has been a member of the CDU. From 1978 to 1980, he served as federal chairman of the Schülerunion, an organisation of high school students loosely associated with the Christian Democrats. From 1979 to 1983, he was on the executive board of the Junge Union and became its regional chairman in Lower Saxony in 1983. However, he decided to resign from the board in order to pursue his law degree, which he completed in 1986. The same year, he was elected a city councillor in his hometown. Since 1984, he has sat on the CDU's regional party council of Lower Saxony, serving as its chairman since 1994.
The Christian Democrats made Wulff candidate for Premier in the run-up of the 1994 legislative assembly elections. Yet, the popular incumbent, Premier Gerhard Schröder won and secured an absolute majority in the Lower Saxony legislature, leading some observers to doubt the wisdom of the provincial party nominating a young and neophyte candidate for Premier. After four years of opposition, the 1998 legislative assembly election brought another opportunity for Wulff to become Premier. Indeed, the federal Christian Democrats, led by Chancellor Helmut Kohl, pinned their hopes on Wulff - a Wulff victory would have stopped the inevitable rise of Schröder to the Social Democrat nomination for Chancellor. However, supported by a wave of sympathy for his candidacy for chancellor in the 1998 federal election, Schröder was returned to power by an enhanced majority - leaving Wulff to serve five more years as provincial leader of the opposition.
Schröder won the 1998 federal election, leaving the premiership to his anointed successor, Home Minister Gerhard Glogowski. The latter soon stumbled over a scandal involving free travels paid by a corporation and was succeeded by Sigmar Gabriel. In the wake of the 1999 scandal, as well as rising discontent with Schröder's federal cabinet, the Christian Democrats rose in the opinion polls and became a serious contender for power in the 2003 assembly election.
[edit] The 2003 election
With Lower Saxony announcing deeper cuts of education and municipal services, the stage was set for the 2003 election campaign. Wulff entered the race as the favourite to win the election and essentially campaigned on a platform of fiscal restraint and clear-cut reforms in the areas of law enforcement and education. Both issues were decisive in the assembly elections that led to a change in fortunes for the two major parties. The Christian Democrats, in the political wilderness since the 1990 Schröder victory, were returned to power in the Legislative Assembly, gaining 48.3 % of the vote. Wulff was sworn in as Premier on 4 March 2003, as the head of a coalition between centre-right Christian Democrats and liberal Free Democrats (FDP).
[edit] Policies
As Premier, Wulff has pursued a multitude of reforms, including a restructuring of the primary education system in Lower Saxony, as well as an increase of police officers on the beat. When Wullf took office, Lower Saxony faced a severe budget crisis, resulting from years of public deficits. Painful cuts to public expenditure were enacted and implemented against considerable political resistance. The measures included cuts in university funding and in benefits for the blind. Other policies concern the reform of the administration (especially the abolition of certain district authorities). Budgetary problems have continued to overshadow Wulff's policies, albeit with somewhat less pressure. Many measures have remained controversial.
Prior to the 2005 Federal Election, Wulff had been mentioned as a potential candidate for the German chancellorship. Surprisingly, in a spring 2005 poll, 28 per cent of all respondents named Wulff as their preferred candidate for the Christian Democrat nomination for Chancellor in the 2006 election [1] As Wulff only began his first term as Premier in early 2003, he is likely to dismiss such speculations. [2] Speculation had particularly increased since the December 2004 Christian Democrat federal convention in Düsseldorf, when Wulff was re-elected deputy leader of the federal party with roughly 86 per cent of all delegates supporting him. However, the premature dissolution of the Bundestag in 2005 and the subsequent election of Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel has largely put an end to further speculation about Wulff's future.
A Wulff candidacy for the CDU nomination for Chancellor may have been appealing to northerners and liberals within the Christian Democrats. Outside the mold of a typical conservative, he may have been able to attract swing voters disillusioned with the slowness of reforms, as well as the rather high rates of unemployment in Germany. Indeed, at the moment, the premier is working on increasing his visibility beyond Lower Saxony's confines, particularly by appearing frequently on TV shows and giving interviews to the national newspapers. Moreover, Wulff is also acquiring a profile on a broad range of issues, including the reform of the German language, Medicare and social security reform, as well as a modernisation of Germany's federal constitution, the Grundgesetz[3]. In fact, the Premier recently criticized the consensus reached between the Christian Democrat and Social Democrat parties on the modernisation of Germany's constitution, stating that he felt that the provinces had not been given sufficient powers to deal with their own affairs. Wulff has also taken a conservative stand on nuclear energy, advocating an extension of the deadlines for the decommissioning of Germany's nuclear reactors
In a recent speech, Wulff also expressed his opposition to euthanasia and warned of a retreat of values, making reference to current tendencies to equate cheap goods (for instance, foodstuff) with high-quality goods. This can be seen as the first attempt to formulate a values agenda for the next legislative assembly, and more importantly, the 2009 federal elections. In this context, it is important to note that Chancellor Angela Merkel had been severely criticized for a lack of emotional warmth during the 2005 federal election campaign, leading to a worse-than-expected result for the Christian Democrats.
Wulff announced on 8 January that Lower Saxony would become the first province to approve a new model according to which the government will temporarily pay part of the salaries for low-salary jobs, if the employers concerned are willing to employ the employee concerned on a long-term basis. This pilot is supposed to make new jobs more affordable in Germany's notoriously high-wages environment[4].
[edit] Wulff and the 2005 federal elections
Due to his popularity in Lower Saxony, and in federal opinion polls, Wulff was considered to be a contender for the office of Chancellor.
After the 23 May announcement that federal elections will be advanced to September 2005, Wulff announced that he was not a candidate for the Christian Democrat nomination for Chancellor, particularly as he has not completed his first term as Premier of Lower Saxony. Instead, Wulff declared his support for Angela Merkel, the CDU leader in the Bundestag. It was expected that the Christian Democrats would win the election and form a government, and that Wulff would be given a position in this government, entering federal politics. However, with the September 18 election resulting in a hung parliament, the outcome is unclear. Wulff continues to be named as a possible CDU candidate for Chancellor, particularly if Chancellor Merkel is unable to secure a decisive mandate in the next federal election, expected for 2009. Another plausible scenario in which a Wulff candidacy for Chancellor may arise is if Merkel is forced to resign because of dissent within her coalition government. Such a situation may possibly arise, if vital social security and Medicare legislation cannot be passed by the coalition. Furthermore, in case of severe reverses in legislative assembly elections expected in the next two years, the Chancellor may come runder fire from critics intending to weaken her authority. This may provide the opening necessary for the Lower Saxon Premier to achieve victory. However, it is more likely that Wulff may take steps towards a chancellorship run after the legislative assembly election in Lower Saxony, expected for 2008.
[edit] Family
In June 2006, Wulff announced that he would divorce his wife Christiane, with whom he has a daughter, Annalena. His new partner is Bettina Körner, a single mother from Hanover. He and Christiane have agreed to share custody of Annalena after the divorce has been finalised. Apparently, the announcement of the divorce does not seem to have hurt Wulff's popularity ratings in either Lower Saxony or the federal level. Wulff and Bettina Körner got married in a low key ceremony on the 21st of March 2008. Their first child, a boy named Linus Florian, was born in Hannover on the 12th of May 2008.[5]
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