‘Eternal’ chancellor: Merkel prepares to leave the stage
BERLIN: She was called “the leader of the free world” as authoritarian populists were on the march in Europe and the United States, but Angela Merkel is wrapping up a historic 16 years in power with an uncertain legacy at home and abroad. In office so long she was dubbed Germany’s “eternal chancellor”, Merkel, 67, leaves with her popularity so resilient she would likely have won a record fifth term had she sought it.
Instead, Merkel will pass the baton as the first German chancellor to step down entirely by choice, with a whole generation of voters never knowing another person at the top. Her supporters say she provided steady, pragmatic leadership through countless global crises as a moderate and unifying figure. Yet critics argue a muddle-through style of leadership, pegged to the broadest possible consensus, lacked the bold vision to prepare Europe and its top economy for the coming decades.
What is certain is that she leaves behind a fractured political landscape.
It is also because of the long shadow she casts that her party’s candidate, Armin Laschet, has struggled to sharpen his own profile. His Social Democratic opponent, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, has actively - and perhaps successfully - sold himself as the real continuity candidate. Assuming she stays on to hand over power, Merkel will tie or exceed Helmut Kohl’s longevity record for a post-war leader, depending on how long the upcoming coalition negotiations drag on.
‘Do the right thing’
The unflappable Merkel has served for many in recent years as a welcome counterbalance to the big, brash men of global politics, from Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin. A Pew Research Center poll this week showed large majorities in most democracies around the globe having “confidence in Merkel to do the right thing in world affairs”.
However, the last days of her tenure have also been marred by what Merkel called the “bitter, dramatic and terrible” return to power of the Taleban in Afghanistan - a debacle in which she shares the blame as Germany completed its evacuation.
A trained quantum chemist raised behind the Iron Curtain, Merkel has long been in sync with her changeaverse electorate as a guarantor of stability. Her major policy shifts reflected the wishes of large German majorities among them phasing out nuclear power after the 2011 Fukushima disaster and attracted a broad new coalition of women and urban voters to the once arch-conservative CDU.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, her boldest move - keeping open German borders in 2015 to more than one million asylum seekers - seemed set to determine her legacy. But while many Germans rallied to Merkel’s “We can do it” cry, the move also emboldened an anti-migrant party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), ushering a farright bloc into parliament for the first time since World War II.