The article “Wulff holt türkischstämmige Ministerin ins Kabinett” details the new Executive Cabinet in Lower Saxony’s CDU lead government. Christian Wulff, who has been the prime minister of Lower Saxony since 2003, has created a new cabinet that includes for the first time an ethnically Turkish minister, Aygül Özkan. Noticeably, the new cabinet also includes the first East German to take up a ministerial role in a West German state, and three of the four new ministers are women.
This new cabinet shows that the traditionally all male, ethnically German political paradigm is being challenged by the changing composition of Germany, where nonnative Germans are making up a larger portion of the populace and women are assuming more and more leadership roles. Wulff’s progressiveness is interesting as he represents the typically conservative CDU, but his willingness to include a diverse cast of ministers in his new cabinet is an important step in a more integrated and socially harmonious Germany.
