{"id":71418,"date":"2021-08-26T15:42:55","date_gmt":"2021-08-26T15:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/?p=71418"},"modified":"2021-08-26T15:42:55","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T15:42:55","slug":"merkel-germanys-eternal-chancellor-prepares-to-leave-the-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/?p=71418","title":{"rendered":"Merkel, Germany’s ‘eternal’ chancellor, prepares to leave the stage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"News Desk:<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

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 wanted to extend her mandate.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Her supporters say she provided steady, pragmatic leadership through countless global crises as a moderate and unifying figure.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

What is certain is that she leaves behind a fractured political landscape, with the question of who will govern Germany next wide open just weeks before the September 26 election.<\/p>\n

Assuming she stays on to hand over power, she will tie or exceed Helmut Kohl's longevity record for a post-war leader, depending on how long the upcoming coalition negotiations drag on.<\/p>\n

– ‘Do the right thing' –<\/p>\n

The brainy, unflappable Merkel has served for many in recent years as a welcome counter-balance to the big, brash men of global politics, from Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n

A Pew Research Center poll late last year showed large majorities in most Western countries having “confidence in Merkel to do the right thing regarding world affairs”.<\/p>\n

However the last days of her tenure have also been marred by what Merkel called the “bitter, dramatic and terrible” return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan — a debacle in which she shares the blame as German troops pull out.<\/p>\n

A trained quantum chemist raised behind the Iron Curtain, Merkel has long been in sync with her change-averse electorate as a guarantor of stability.<\/p>\n

Her major policy shifts have 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.<\/p>\n

– ‘Austerity queen' –<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 far-right bloc into parliament for the first time since World War II.<\/p>\n

At the same time, hardline leaders such as Hungary's Viktor Orban accused her of “moral imperialism” with her welcoming stance.<\/p>\n

Six years on, she lamented this month, the European Union appears no closer to a unified policy on migration.<\/p>\n

The woman once known as the “climate chancellor” for pushing renewables also faces a mass movement of young activists arguing Merkel has failed to face up to the climate emergency, with Germany not even meeting its own emissions-reduction commitments.<\/p>\n

She became Europe's go-to leader during the eurozone crisis when Berlin championed swingeing spending cuts in return for international bailout loans for debt-mired countries.<\/p>\n

Angry protesters dubbed her Europe's “austerity queen” and caricatured her in Nazi garb while defenders credit her with holding the currency union together.<\/p>\n

More recently, despite admitted missteps in the coronavirus pandemic including a sluggish vaccine roll-out, Germany's infection levels and death toll have remained lower than those of many European partners relative to its population.<\/p>\n

– Kohl's ‘girl' to ‘Mummy' –<\/p>\n

Merkel, the EU's and G7's most senior leader, started as a contemporary of George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac when she became Germany's youngest and first female chancellor in 2005.<\/p>\n

She was born Angela Dorothea Kasner on July 17, 1954 in the port city of Hamburg, the daughter of a Lutheran clergyman and a school teacher.<\/p>\n

Her father moved the family to a small-town parish in the communist East at a time when tens of thousands were headed the other way.<\/p>\n

She excelled in mathematics and Russian, which has helped her maintain the dialogue with the other veteran on the world stage, Russia's Putin, who was a KGB officer in Dresden when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.<\/p>\n

Merkel kept the name of her first husband, whom she married in 1977 and divorced five years later.<\/p>\n

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Merkel, who was working in a chemistry lab, joined a pro-democracy group that would merge with Kohl's Christian Democrats.<\/p>\n

The Protestant from the east whom Kohl nicknamed his “girl” would later be elected leader of a party until then dominated by western Catholic patriarchs.<\/p>\n

As she rose to power, party rivals sneeringly called her “Mutti” (Mummy) behind her back but she deftly — some said ruthlessly — eliminated potential challengers.<\/p>\n

Although her name has come up on wish lists for key EU or United Nations posts, Merkel has said she will leave politics altogether.<\/p>\n

Asked on her final trip to Washington in June what she looked forward to most, she replied “not having to constantly make decisions”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News Desk: 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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":71419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,14],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n