Merkel could run for fourth term next year
Berlin, Nov. 16: German Chancellor Angela Merkel will run for a fourth term next year, a lawmaker in her conservative party said, though her spokesman brushed off the comments and said she would address the issue “at the suitable time”.
Norbert Roettgen, a lawmaker in Ms Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told CNN on Tuesday that Merkel “will run and she will act as a responsible leader”.
The former environment minister, who is not in Ms Merkel’s inner circle, did not say how he knew she had made up her mind to run in the national elections in 2017.
But her aides have signalled in the past she is moving that way in the wake of Republican Donald Trump’s US election victory, Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and the rise of populist parties across Europe.
“She will run for chancellor,” said Mr Roettgen, who now chairs the Bundestag foreign affairs committee.
“And she is absolutely determined, willing and ready to contribute to strengthen the international liberal order, but we can’t see the chancellor or Germany as last man standing,” Mr Roettgen added.
A pragmatist, Ms Merkel has steered Europe through the eurozone crisis and the biggest influx of migrants into the continent since World War II.
Asked about Roettgen’s assertion, a CDU spokesman said, “What the party leadership said remains valid — she will communicate her decision in due course.”