In her early political days, Dr Angela Merkel - who steps down as German chancellor after federal elections on Sunday - had to learn the brutality of an election campaign the hard way.

It was in 2005, when she ran for the first time as the top candidate of her party, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Believing that people would honour honesty and truth, the politician from eastern Germany did not mince words. She talked openly about the need for change, liberal economic reform and, most of all, announced that if she were elected, the VAT (value-added tax) rate would increase by 2 percentage points.