FDP leader Guido Westerwelle became the unofficial leader of the opposition by virtue of the FDP's position as the largest opposition party in the Bundestag.

On election night party leader Westerwelle said his party would work to ensure that civil liberties were respected and that Germany got an " equitable tax system and better education opportunities.

Westerwelle stepped down as party leader in 2011 after the party was wiped out in Saxony-Anhalt, Rhineland-Palatinate and lost half its seats in Baden-Württemberg.

The FDP supports gay rights ; former party leader Guido Westerwelle is openly gay.

In the federal elections of 2009, Westerwelle committed his party to a coalition with Dr Merkel's CDU / CSU, ruling out a coalition with Social Democrats and Greens, and led his party to unprecedented 14. 6 %.

Westerwelle then stepped down as party leader.

By July the party was only receiving 3 % support in opinion polls, a record low, reflecting what political insiders had called his " last stand " in January, comparing Westerwelle and his party to Captain Ahab and the Pequod.

Westerwelle himself, who was made party chairman particularly because his predecessor Wolfgang Gerhardt had been viewed by many as dull and stiff, has labelled his approach as Spaßpolitik ( fun politics ) in the past.

Philipp Rösler is FDP chairman, having succeeded Guido Westerwelle, the party's second-longest serving chairman, in May 2011.

In 2006, according to an internal agreement, Westerwelle succeeded Wolfgang Gerhardt as chairman of the parliamentary group.

Westerwelle speaking at an election rally in Hamm

When neither Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats and Greens nor a coalition of Christian and Free Democrats, favored by Angela Merkel and Westerwelle, managed to gain a majority of seats, Westerwelle rejected overtures by Chancellor Schröder to save his chancellorship by entering his coalition, preferring to become one of the leaders of the disparate opposition of the subsequently formed " Grand Coalition " of Christian and Social Democrats, with Merkel as Chancellor.

Wulff's candidacy for President of Germany in the 2010 presidential election was formally confirmed by Angela Merkel, Guido Westerwelle and Horst Seehofer, the heads of the CDU, FDP and CSU parties, during the evening of 2010.

The Reding initiative led a group of foreign affairs ministers of the European Union to put together a reflection group animated by the German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle on the future of Europe.

Because of the losses Guido Westerwelle had to resign as chair of the FDP in favor of Philipp Rösler, Federal Minister of Health, who was consequently appointed as vice chancellor.

Guido Westerwelle (; born 27 December 1961 ) is a German liberal politician, who, since 28 October 2009, has served as the Foreign Minister in the second cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel, and who was Vice Chancellor of Germany from 2009 to 2011.

In 1996, Westerwelle was first elected a member of the Bundestag, filling in for Heinz Lanfermann, who had resigned from his seat after entering the Ministry of Justice.

Guido Westerwelle was born in Bad Honnef in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Westerwelle is a staunch supporter of the free market and has proposed reforms to curtail the German welfare state and deregulate German labour law.

In an interview in February 2003, Westerwelle described trade unions as a " plague on our country " and said union officials were " the pall bearers of the welfare state and of the prosperity in our country ".

In 1998, Westerwelle was re-elected to parliament.

Angela Merkel was re-elected as chancellor, and Guido Westerwelle served as the Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor of Germany.

Westerwelle joined the FDP in 1980.

In the federal elections of 2005, Westerwelle was his party's frontrunner.

Westerwelle became a vocal critic of the new government.

In July 2011 Westerwelle was the President of the United Nations Security Council as he headed the German delegation to the United Nations.

In 1970, he was appointed First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Kraikom, a body of the CPSU, becoming one of the youngest provincial party chiefs in the nation.

In recent times, Thackeray does not concern himself with day-to-day activities of the party, which is run by his youngest son Uddhav Thackeray.

Pelosi is Italian-American and was born Nancy Patricia D ' Alesandro in Baltimore, Maryland, the youngest of six children of Annunciata M. " Nancy " ( née Lombardi ) and Thomas D ' Alesandro, Jr., who was a Democratic party U. S. Congressman from Maryland and a Mayor of Baltimore.

During his service for the development and industrialization of the country as a director general at the age of 30, and a political party chairman and the youngest Turkish prime minister at the age of 40, his overall tenure was shorter than only İsmet İnönü's.

He successfully led his party into government in the 1970 election, defeating the conservative Union Nationale government and becoming the youngest premier in Quebec history.

At only 38 years old, he was one of the youngest party leaders in British history.

When in 1969 his predecessor as Prime Minister of Jamaica, Michael Manley, launched his campaign for the Presidency of the PNP, he turned to P. J. Patterson, youngest of the highest-ranking segment of the party executive, to lead his campaign.

The party attracted to its banner a number of Britain's leading radicals, including William Morris, Edward Aveling and his partner Eleanor Marx, Karl's youngest daughter.

Installed as President of the National Assembly in 1988 ( at 41 years of age, the equal youngest in the history of the lower house ), he succeeded finally in becoming First Secretary of the party in 1992, but resigned after the Socialist disaster of the 1993 legislative election.

Varina Davis enjoyed the vibrant social life of the capital city and quickly established herself as one of the city's most popular ( and, in her early 20s, one of the youngest ) hostesses and party guests.

In 1960, he was elected Chairman of the Multnomah County Republican Central Committee, thus becoming the youngest party chairman of a major metropolitan area in the country.

Of the four that remained, two were Bavarians, Andreas Hinterstoisser and Toni Kurz, the youngest of the party, and two were Austrians, Willy Angerer and Edi Rainer.

Set almost a decade after Rainbow Valley, Europe is on the brink of the First World War, and Anne's youngest daughter Rilla is an irrepressible almost-15-year-old, excited about her first adult party and blissfully unaware of the chaos that the Western world is about to enter.

At age 23 in 1981, he was elected as Northern Treasurer of the California Democratic Party, the youngest party officer ever.

In 1999 he was among the Conservative hereditary peers elected to remain in the House of Lords after the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999, the youngest chosen by any party group.

Later the same year he was elected leader of the PEI Liberal Party and, in 1966 took the party to power becoming, at 32, one of the youngest premiers ever elected in Canada.

He / she is assisted in his / her work by the youngest deputy from each of the four party lists that polled the largest number of seats, and by the Secretary of the Assembly

He was as one of the youngest party leaders and a protégé of Alcide De Gasperi, the undisputed leader of the party for the following decade.

In the summer of 1777 Pellew, with a small party of seamen, was attached to the army under Burgoyne and was present in the fighting at Saratoga, where his youngest brother, John, was killed.

He is 12 years old, and initially the youngest member of the party.

Following the elections of 1987, in which his party did well, Goria became Prime Minister ( the youngest his country had seen since World War II ), as a protégé of party chairman ( and prime ministerial successor ) Ciriaco de Mita.