Angela Merkel

Angela Merkel, a physicist by training, isn’t flashy and doesn’t use Twitter. Yet once she became Germany’s chancellor in 2005, every event that shook the European Union made her ever more its indispensable leader for more than a decade. Her fourth term, which began in early 2018, has raised questions about her power to influence events in Europe and even at home in Germany, where critics know her as “Mutti,” or “Mommy.” Merkel put her stamp on Europe and beyond defending moderation and liberal values that were increasingly coming under attack as nationalists gained power around the world. Much of her trouble stemmed from her decision not to shutter the German border to hundreds of thousands of refugees entering the country in 2015 and 2016, rebuffing opposition by declaring the move a moral and political imperative. It was a sharp departure from her usual cautious mantra of solving problems “step by step,’’ and it cost her at the polls. In late October, she said she would quit as head of her party, the Christian Democratic Union, and wouldn’t run for chancellor again when her term expires in 2021.

Merkel’s authority has been severely tested since a disappointing result in the 2017 federal election. The party bloc led by Merkel took its lowest share of the vote since 1949 despite a booming economy. The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party, known as AfD, surged into parliament with 12.6 percent of the vote, making it the third-largest force. It is the first far-right party since 1953 with seats in the lower house, the Bundestag. After the election, it took Merkel six months to piece together a governing coalition, which has been riven by infighting and suffered losses in regional ballots in October in Bavaria and Hesse. She insisted she intends to serve out her term as chancellor. But how long she’s able to hang on will depend on who wins the race to succeed her as party leader.