Merkel Announces Re-Election Bid After Months Of Thinking

But it’s a role she seems reluctant to play.

NELSON: She says while it’s an honor to be seen as influential in the wake of the USA elections, she also finds it, quote, “grotesque and too absurd”.

In 2015, Germany received more than a million applications for asylum. She will have to contend with a society that is divided over her refugee policy.

But with uncertainties created by Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as USA president, her allies hope German voters will rally behind the long-serving chancellor.

Merkel, who if reelected, plans to stay in office for a full four-year term or for “as long as my health allows it”, outlined her next steps. The consensus is that she brings stability and reassurance to Germany and to Europe at a time when both are in short supply. British Prime Minister Theresa May took office last summer after the Brexit vote swept away David Cameron.

“The prospect of a Fillon presidency clearly is welcome in Berlin”.

By saying she will seek a fourth term, Merkel has effectively fired the starting gun on campaigning for the election in September next year, though she must govern with the SPD until then. Her popularity dropped and other parties gained ground in local elections, most notably the Alternative for Germany (AfD – Alternative für Deutschland). She got along smoothly with Obama, but she is also easily enough of a pragmatist to work effectively with Trump where she sees American and German interests as coinciding. Their views also differ sharply on climate change and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Announcing her decision to stand, she said, “This election will be hard like no other before it”. But that will be tested as Mr. Putin warms up to Mr. Trump, who appears less interested in sanctions.

With US President Barack Obama stepping down next year, Dr Merkel stands as the West’s last great hope for liberal democracy – a mantle she must assume from a position of diminished standing at home, and which may prove too much.

“Merkel is somebody to set the tone”.

“In these hard times, Merkel is a pillar of stability”, Mr Guellner told The Associated Press. She wants to extend the same model to other north African countries.

Ms. Merkel has guided Germany and, increasingly, Europe though myriad crises.

“She is basically the anti-Trump”, he told the newspaper group Redaktionsnetzwerk. The American president-elect should not imagine that he and America can get along in the world without good relations with Germany and its chancellor. “Do I have enough power to do it?” Although buoyed by this nation’s vast economic strength, she faces a serious backlash from her decision previous year to take in almost a million refugees from the Middle East.

The populist party, which is now represented in 10 state parliaments, has aggressively campaigned against Merkel’s decision to welcome so many refugees into Germany previous year.

Germany’s first female chancellor and its first from the formerly communist East has been weakened by a populist backlash against her policy of allowing nearly 1 million refugees to enter Germany previous year, a decision that fueled backing for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany.

Merkel, 62, made it official in a news conference held by her party, the Christian Democratic Union. A poll published Sunday by the Emnid research institute suggested if the elections were held now, her party would win easily, though by smaller margins than previously.