Europe’s greatest trustworthy politician

Running for a fourth term as German chancellor, Angela Merkel has to recover the support she lost due to a controversial refugee policy that has divided Germany between those lauding her open-door approach and those accusing her of wrecking the social fabric. About 40 per cent of Germans still trust her, 42 per cent do not, and 18 per cent don’t know.

As a woman brought up in Communist East Germany, this 62-year-old lady sees the historic importance of defending liberty. Speaking to the Bundestag a few days ago after a short meeting with President Trump, Ms Merkel pledged to work to ease the differences which still exist with Mr Trump. She also pledged to continue defending democracy, the rule of law and open markets, and to work with EU partners in managing globalization.

As late as summer 2015, Angela Merkel was doing exceptionally well with the CDU/CSU on 43 per cent in the polls, equal to her 2013 election win. But the damning refugee crisis has shaken Germany badly. While many Germans responded positively to her decision in August 2015 to keep the borders open for middle eastern refugees streaming into Central Europe, others quickly focused on security, Islamist terrorism and the difficult integration of more than one million new arrivals.

Meanwhile, the German chancellor is under heavy pressure with the arrival on the political stage of Mr Shultz, who was elected leader of the Socialist Party to run for Chancellor in this year’s election. Quite a tough leader to handle.

To safeguard her life’s work and huge success in politics, Ms Merkel has to be very, very careful of Shultz as well as Vladimir Putin. The latter’s main objective is to destabilize the EU and he is doing all he can to achieve this ambition. Just recently, German intelligence chief has warned of the danger of Russian interference in the upcoming federal elections through possible cyber-attacks, following claims by US officials that Moscow interfered in the US presidential election last year.

Despite Shultz and Putin and other concerns, Ms Merkel is still the favourite to win the elections in autumn, in the sense that her conservative bloc of the CDU and its CSU partner is expected to return as the largest party. But that will not be enough. She also has to win enough seats to lead a truly effective coalition, either with the Social Democrats SPD, her current partners CSU, or with new allies. Anything less would look like defeat.

Can Angela Merkel counter Mr Shultz’s harsh criticism? Can she persuade Putin to stop interfering in the coming elections? Can she counter the anger stoked by her courageous and exemplary refugee policy? I sincerely hope she does. She deserves to win another fourth term in office. Jos Edmond Zarb Birkirkara