Will Angela Merkel Complete Her Term as German Chancellor?

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Will Angela Merkel Complete Her Term as German Chancellor?

Germany’s perception of Chancellor Angela Merkel is changing rapidly.

At the beginning of the year, the three-term chancellor was arguably the “most successful politician in the world,” as the Financial Times wrote last week. Politically and economically, her leadership dominated Europe. That success further boosted her popularity at home.

But that was then.

“[T]he refugee crisis that has broken over Germany is likely to spell the end of the Merkel era,” explained the Times.

“With the country in line to receive more than a million asylum seekers this year alone, public anxiety is mounting—and so is criticism of Ms. Merkel from within her own party. Some of her close political allies acknowledge that it is now distinctly possible that the chancellor will have to leave office, before the next general election in 2017. Even if she sees out a full term, the notion of a fourth Merkel administration, widely discussed a few months ago, now seems improbable.”

Germans once adored Merkel as mutti (mom) whose most recent exploits were leading Europe’s response to the eurozone and Crimean crises. Now, disgruntled Germans are questioning her judgment; they wonder if she’s “gone mad.”

“Regardless of the chancellor’s personal fate and reputation,” continued the Times, “the refugee crisis marks a turning point. The decade after Ms. Merkel first came to power in 2005 now looks like a blessed period for Germany, in which the country was able to enjoy peace, prosperity and international respect, while keeping the troubles of the world at a safe distance. That golden era is now over.”

Merkel’s government has lost control of the refugee crisis situation. Social services are under strain as costs pile up. Violence coming from the far right is on the increase. Politicians in Merkel’s own party are panicking.

We are entering a new era in German politics!

Another article from the Financial Times titled “Migrant Crisis Strains Germany’s Oldest Political Marriage” explained,

The oldest marriage in German politics was sealed amid the rubble of the country’s postwar rebuilding and has weathered challenges from reunification to the eurozone debt crisis.But the current refugee crisis is straining to the limit the conservative alliance between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and the Bavaria-based Christian Social Union that has been a bulwark of Germany’s enduring political stability.

csu Chairman Horst Seehofer is reportedly considering withdrawing the three csu ministers out of Merkel’s cabinet. “Anything is possible,” he told German media.

“When the Merkel era does finally come to an end,” wrote the Spectator’s Hans Kundnani on October 29, “it is not at all clear what kind of country she will leave behind.”

Kundnani, like some other commentators, wonders if Merkel’s looming downfall will introduce a new Germany—one that eschews its guilt-driven postwar identity. “The migrant crisis is testing the country’s idea of itself,” he wrote in the Spectator.

He continued,

Anger is growing at Merkel’s handling of the migration crisis. … [W]hile Merkel’s supporters see her approach to the migration crisis as bold, her critics—mainly on the right—see it as reckless. There has already been an angry backlash from voters, and that could increase. Since the crisis began, the euroskeptic and increasingly xenophobic Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which had seemed to be falling apart after its founder, Bernd Lucke, left to form a new party in July, has been rising in the polls again. Meanwhile attacks on asylum seekers have taken place on an almost daily basis.The resurgence of the AfD and the increasing frequency of attacks on asylum seekers illustrates how fragile Germany’s sense of identity remains.

Further shattering that post-World War ii identity is the dominant leadership position Germany already enjoys in Europe. The Spectator quoted the Bavarian Christian Democrat leader Franz Josef Strauss who reportedly declared of the Germans: “[A] people that has achieved the economic success that we have has a right to hear nothing more about Auschwitz.”

It remains to be seen when and how Angela Merkel’s chancellorship will end, but the end of the Merkel era is clearly in sight. Merkel’s demise, however, will not signal the end of a strong Germany—it will herald its start.

The lessons of history will then ring true, as Simon Heffer explained in the Daily Mail: “History shows it is always only a matter of time before Germany ends up dominating Europe. … The Fourth Reich is here without a shot being fired: and the rest of Europe, and the world, had better get used to it” (March 29, 2013).

Simultaneously, the prophecies of the Bible will also ring true.