Merkel to seek fourth term as Germany’s leader

Angela Merkel has decided to seek a fourth term as German chancellor, less than two weeks after Donald Trump’s election in the US left her as the west’s pre-eminent defender of liberal values.

The announcement to stand again came days after meetings with world leaders that underscored Ms Merkel’s importance to an international liberal order rocked by Mr Trump’s electoral victory, and the rise of populist and nationalist parties across Europe.

She announced her decision to seek re-election on Sunday night, ending months of speculation. She said she had “thought endlessly” about whether to run again and described the decision as “anything but trivial, not for the country, for the party and for me personally”.

Ms Merkel said the world was living through “difficult, uncertain times” and “people just wouldn’t understand if I didn’t try to bring all my experience, my gifts and talent . . . to bear to serve Germany”.

She said the election would be harder than any since German reunification in 1990, with challenges from right and left, an EU still under “huge strain” thanks to the refugee crisis and Brexit, and the new situation the world faced since the US election.

But she said it was “grotesque and almost absurd” to suggest she could solve all the world’s problems on her own. “We can only do it together,” she said.

Last week, the 62-year-old won the endorsement of President Barack Obama, who was in Berlin on the last leg of his final European tour for an informal summit with five EU heads of government. The outgoing president described Ms Merkel as his “closest international partner” and said, albeit in jest, that if he were German he would vote for her.

Her decision to run will be met with relief in EU capitals, where she is seen as a rock of stability at a time of tectonic shifts in European politics. In recent years EU leaders have increasingly looked to Ms Merkel and Germany, the eurozone’s largest economy, to help solve the continent’s problems, ranging from the refugee crisis and the war in Ukraine to the Greek bailout and Brexit.

Ms Merkel’s decision comes as the French on Sunday went to the polls to select a centre-right candidate for next year’s election. Pollsters expect the winner to face far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the battle for the presidency.

“Germany and Europe need a safe pair of hands, they need predictability in policymaking, coherence and stability,” said Norbert Röttgen, the CDU head of the Bundestag Foreign Affairs committee. “It’s our responsibility to be this anchor of stability in the world.”

Even after 11 years in power, Ms Merkel remains one of Germany’s most popular politicians. A poll carried out by Emnid for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper showed 55 per cent of Germans want her to remain as chancellor for a fourth term, up from 42 per cent in August. “She is solid as a rock in a stormy sea,” said Thomas Strobl, deputy head of the CDU.

But her ratings are not nearly as high as they were before last year’s refugee crisis. Her decision to open Germany’s doors to hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing war in the Middle East alienated large parts of the electorate and provoked a row between the CDU and its more conservative Bavarian sister party, the CSU. Terrorist attacks in Bavaria last summer raised fears that the influx of Muslims from Arab countries could have compromised Germany’s security.

Both the CDU and the CSU have seen support drain away to the Alternative for Germany, a rightwing populist movement fuelled by the same anti-immigrant sentiment that helped to power Mr Trump’s win and Britain’s decision to leave the EU.

In the eyes of many AfD supporters, Ms Merkel symbolises a remote political establishment that has grown out of touch with the concerns of ordinary voters disillusioned by globalisation, free trade and open borders.

The AfD is now Germany’s third most popular party, according to Emnid, with 13 per cent of the vote. This compares with 33 per cent for the CDU/CSU — down considerably on the 41 per cent they scored in the 2013 election — and 24 per cent for the Social Democrats, junior partner in Ms Merkel’s governing coalition.

“The Bundestag election is open,” said Thomas Oppermann, head of the SPD group in parliament. “Angela Merkel is no longer unbeatable.”

With nearly three terms as chancellor behind her, Ms Merkel also finds herself accused of losing her political touch. She suffered a tactical defeat last week over how to fill the largely ceremonial post of president, when she was forced to accept the SPD’s choice of Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister.

Ms Merkel has been leader of the CDU since 2000 and chancellor since 2005. If she is re-elected next year and serves out a full term she will become Germany’s longest-serving postwar chancellor, beating Konrad Adenauer, who was in the post for 14 years, and Helmut Kohl, who led the government for 16 years.

During its meeting on Sunday, the CDU also began drawing up an election platform for next year’s campaign which is in part designed to stop the haemorrhaging of support to the AfD. The party will, for example, rule out a repeat of last year’s refugee influx and say that it will pursue sanctions against migrants who refuse to integrate into German society.

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Nary a murmur as Merkel stands again? / From Nick Parsons