Mattel Unveils Angela Merkel Barbie Doll

Barbie can add another dream job to her list Germany's first female head-of-government.

Toy company Mattel Inc. debuted the Chancellor Angela Merkel Barbie doll last week at an international toy fair in the southern city of Nuremberg. It sports Merkel's signature strawberry-blond bob, an elegant black pantsuit and low-heeled shoes.

"She's a role model for other women worldwide," Mattel spokeswoman Stephanie Wegener. "She represents what we can achieve."

Merkel attended the fair's opening Wednesday and Wegener said she approved of her miniature doppelganger _ even though Barbie's familiar face and figure do not exactly replicate her real-life appearance.

"Creating a copy of someone is not the intention _ we're not Madame Tussauds," Wegener said. "It's just a lookalike doll created to honor her."

The special-edition Barbie, part of El Segundo, California-based Mattel's celebrations of the ubiquitous doll's 50th birthday, is not for sale and will not go into production. The company said it has not yet decided what to do with it after the trade fair closes Tuesday.

Merkel, 54, is up for re-election this year. The former physicist topped Forbes magazine's 2008 list of the world's 100 most powerful women for the third consecutive year. Merkel also made headlines last week for publicly chastising Pope Benedict XVI over the rehabilitation of a bishop that sparked outrage because of his denials of the Holocaust

Angela Merkel is the Chancellor of Germany. Merkel, elected to the German Parliament from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, has been the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since 9 April 2000, and Chairwoman of the CDU-CSU parliamentary party group from 2002 to 2005. She leads a Grand coalition with its sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), formed after the 2005 federal election on 22 November 2005.

In 2007, Merkel was also President of the European Council and chair of the G8. She played a central role in the negotiation of the Treaty of Lisbon and the Berlin Declaration. In domestic policy, health care reform and problems concerning future energy development have thus far been the major issues of her tenure.

Merkel is the first female Chancellor of Germany. She is considered by Forbes Magazine to be the "most powerful woman in the world at the present time". In 2007 she became the second woman to chair the G8 after Margaret Thatcher.

Chancellor Merkel is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an International network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers whose mission is to mobilize the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.

In 2008 Merkel received the Charlemagne Prize "for her work to reform the European Union". The prize was presented by Nicolas Sarkozy.

Category:

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Tags:

• Barbie
• Doll
• Collectors
• Commercial
• german
• dolls
• Angela
• Merkel
• government
• urkel

[crazyyanima]

thats so cute

[Testmntsvollstrecker]

angela Merkil as a Barbie doll? is it the real Angela? why still representing women so thin? whatever it was a good idea and a honor to the german chancelor, after all she is the first woman chancelor in Germany, a prestigious country!

[SexyLenaa91]

fänds cool wen mich jemand vor meinen allein da sein rettet

[MagicalVenusLove]

Warum schreibst du so etwas?

Hat sie dir etwa etwas schlimmes angetan?

Ich finde sie haben die Puppe ganz gut getroffen ^^

[schnuggelchen1991]

NIEDER MIT ANGELA MERKEL!!!

[katgirl1921]

that is cool she got her own babrie

[MariposaMegan]

I want to work for Barbie SO BAD.

[BarbieGeneric]

I hear it comes with velcro wrinkles and a snap-on double chin...

Kisses

[mileyrockz24]

cool!