 Complete the following phrase:  Following the 2005 federal election, Merkel was appointed to succeed Gerhard Schröder as Chancellor of Germany, leading a grand coalition consisting of the CDU, its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union CSU and the Social Democratic Party SPD. Merkel was the first woman to be elected as Chancellor, and the first Chancellor since German reunification to have been raised in the former East Germany. At the 2009 federal election, the CDU obtained the largest share of the vote, and Merkel was able to form a coalition government with the Free Democratic Party FDP. At the 