Merkel to step down in 2021

BERLIN: Angela Merkel will step down as German chancellor when her mandate ends in 2021, a party source, following a series of political crises and regional vote debacles rocking her fragile coalition.

She told party top brass her mandate running to 2021 will be “her last term”, a party source said, adding that she has no plans to seek a post in the European Commission following that despite speculation to that effect in Brussels.

However, German media reported that Merkel had told a meeting of top brass in the Christian Democratic Union that she did intend to stay on as chancellor, a mandate set to run until 2021.

Merkel, who has headed the CDU for 18 years, had until now always indicated that she believed the posts of party leader and chancellor should be held by the same person. “She will not stand again for the chairmanship of her party,” a source within the Christian Democratic Union said.

Merkel had been widely expected to be reelected as CDU chief at a party congress in December.

The surprise news comes a day after the CDU and its junior federal coalition partner the Social Democrats (SPD) suffered heavy losses in an election in the state of Hesse, just two weeks after a similar drubbing in Bavaria.

Both polls have been seen as damning verdicts on the right-left “grand coalition” in Berlin which has lurched from crisis to crisis, often over the hot-button issue of migration.

With her authority bdly weakened by last September’s inconclusive general election and ongoing squabbles in her coalition, the chancellor has faced mounting calls to prepare Germany for the post-Merkel era.