Angela Merkel makes improbable comeback as Germany’s ‘crisis leader’
- German chancellor’s steady leadership in Covid-19 fight has helped boost her party in opinion polls
- Merkel has brushed off calls for her to reconsider running in 2021 for a record fifth term
Angela Merkel has been so successful in outfoxing and systematically eliminating any would-be challengers to her rule that there are not any obvious political heavyweights left in her conservative party with the clout or stature to step in to succeed her when she retires next year. No heir apparent. No one in the wings.
Germany has come through the coronavirus crisis in relatively good shape so far and much of the economy has reopened as the numbers of daily new infections and deaths have dwindled to manageable levels. But with Merkel, only the country’s eighth chancellor since 1949, set to become its first post-war leader to leave office under their own volition in 2021, a period of unprecedented lame-duck uncertainty and perhaps even power vacuum turmoil for her party loom.
“There’s no one else on the horizon because she managed to kill off anyone who could have been dangerous to her,” Thomas Jaeger, a political scientist at Cologne University, told South China Morning Post. He was referring to a dozen once-powerful men forced into the political wilderness by Merkel since she took control of the conservative party in 2000. “There’s no one left, only a bunch of political dwarves. But that’s a problem for the party, not Merkel.”
With the clock winding down on Merkel after 15 years at the helm of Europe’s most powerful country, the 66-year-old is once again at the height of her own power thanks to the sterling opinion polls she has earned for her Christian Democrats (CDU) – a reward for her widely praised leadership during the Covid-19 crisis.
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Recent opinion polls show the conservatives at 37 per cent, up 11 points from March. That is nearly double the amount that the next closest party, the Greens at 20 per cent would win.
Merkel has brushed off calls for her to change her mind and consider running in 2021 for a record fifth term even though her conservatives seem destined to win power again because rival centre-left parties are struggling badly. She laughed out loud in a television interview when asked if she would run again -perhaps because it sounded ridiculous, when just a year earlier many were calling for her to resign.
There’s no one left, only a bunch of political dwarves
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A fourth unannounced chancellor candidate for 2021, Bavarian governor Markus Soeder, might have the stature and popularity among conservative voters to succeed Merkel. But because he is only the leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), his path to the Kanzleramt in Berlin would be complicated.
The next CDU leader – whomever that may be – would have to formally pass the torch to smaller CSU. That has only happened twice in the last 70 years – in 1980 and 2002 – and both CSU chancellor candidates lost the national election for the conservative bloc.
Merkel, who may be the epitome of the dull leadership that many Germans seem to cherish, has helped the CDU come roaring back in opinion polls ahead of the next election due in September 2021.
Her steady leadership in the fight against Covid-19 has made millions of once-angry voters forget about her controversial decision to open the country’s borders for millions of refugees from Syria and the Middle East in 2015 that caused deep fissures in Germany, electoral defeats and an ominous slide in opinion polls.
“It’s easy to forget how unpopular Merkel was just a year and a half ago – before Corona came along and saved her,” said Jaeger. A trained scientist with a PhD in chemistry, Merkel has been a bastion of stability for Germans throughout her nearly 15 years in power, yet was losing power and control in the twilight of her career before the pandemic.
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Stefan Kornelius, a senior editor at the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper in Munich who wrote a biography of Merkel, said the daughter of a pastor who was raised in Communist East Germany and didn’t enter politics until her late 30s deserves a lot, if not all, of the credit for Germany coming through the crisis so smoothly. Her style of leadership seems to fit the times now.
“Merkel is just being herself and hasn’t really changed her leadership style at all during her 15 years in office,” Kornelius told South China Morning Post. “But the big difference is that her style of leadership has come back into fashion. That’s what the country needed – someone who approaches the problem calmly, cautiously, systematically and in a non-partisan, non-ideological way. You can’t beat the virus with ideology. That’s been her trademark style for the last 15 years. It fell out of favour for a while after the refugee crisis and wasn’t really appreciated any more by many Germans. But it’s back in style again now.”
Merkel has filled her press conferences and speeches to the nation with sobering data and reflections from scientists and medical advisers. Whereas she has a natural tendency to be vague enough most of the time so that most of her audience usually goes home feeling she told them exactly what they wanted to hear, she has been clear and precise during the crisis with dire warnings to stay at home and adhere to the government’s advisories on social distancing.
While sometimes criticised for shying away from the economic reforms many say Germany and the European Union needs, Merkel has thrived as a crisis manager during her reign: in 2008 during the Lehman Brothers global financial crisis; the Greek debt crisis and euro zone currency crises that followed, in 2015 during the refugee crisis and after that during the rise of populism in Europe and Brexit.
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“She’s not much of a visionary leader, but someone who goes about solving hugely complex problems in a sober fashion,” he said. “She’s been at her best in the last 15 years whenever Germany was facing a major crisis. She was a calming influence every time. She steered Germany and Europe through each crisis by simply staying calm and avoiding ideological battles or partisanship.”
It would be amiss to call Merkel – the antithesis of vanity – Germany’s secret weapon in its battle against the coronavirus because she too has made mistakes and not always been able to manage the country’s 16 governors. But analysts agree that Merkel deserves high marks for her steadying performance so far, which may one day be credited with saving hundreds if not thousands of lives.
“Merkel has emerged as an excellent crisis leader,” Joern Leonhard, a leading history professor and author at the University of Freiburg, said. “When you’re in the room with her there are a few things you come away with: she truly does think and analyse things like you would expect from a natural scientist – she listens, weighs the evidence; and then moves forward in very small, incremental and rational steps. She’s got an aversion to being emotional. But then when she moves, she moves decisively and when she speaks out, it’s taken seriously. People know: it’s never a show with her. And that’s all been extremely helpful during this crisis.”
“In ordinary times, a lot of people think she might be a bit dull, perhaps overly cautious and even a bit aloof,” he added. “But during a crisis having a leader like Merkel works well.”
