Excerpt:
Aygül Özkan, 38, was meant to be the next great hope for a new generation of German politicians. In April, she became the first person of Turkish origin to be appointed as a government minister at the state level . Indeed, it was rare that a politician had been given as much advance praise or had been saddled with such great expectations.
"She's a major role model, with her competence and her character and she will get off to a good start and do a good job," Christian Wulff, then the state governor of Lower Saxony and now Germany's president, said at the time. He said she would also help to "prevent parallel societies" from forming, a reference to immigrant ghettos many politicians fear are developing in German cities.
At the time of her appointment as social minister, Özkan was feted not just by her party, Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), but across the political spectrum. But Özkan's time in office so far has been marred by controversy.