After the 2005 federal election in Germany and the defeat of the Social Democratic Party, Merkel succeeded Gerhard Schröder as Chancellor of Germany in a grand coalition government of the Christian Democratic Union and the Bavarian Christian Social Union - its sister party in the state of Bavaria - and the German Social Democratic Party. Merkel was the first woman in the history of Germany and the first former citizen of East Germany after German reunification to reach the position of German chancellor.