Don’t Write Off Merkel Just Yet
Even as a lame duck chancellor, she could use her remaining time in office to take meaningful action.
Are her best years yet to come?
Photographer: Florian Gaertner/Photothek via Getty Images
I have warned repeatedly against writing off Chancellor Angela Merkel as she faced challenge after challenge in recent years. I’m going to issue another such warning now, even though it might seem counterintuitive given her announcement Monday that she’d give up the leadership of her Christian Democratic Union in December and not run for a parliament seat in 2021.
Those decisions make Merkel a lame duck. They also make it more obvious than ever that she risks ending her final term as chancellor before 2021. Her predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, stepped down as leader of the Social Democratic Party in 2004 while staying on as chancellor. Merkel has long said she didn’t want to follow his example, perhaps because he lost his post to her in a snap election in 2005.