German Chancellor Angela Merkel is reportedly gearing up to seek a fourth term in 2017, unnamed sources told German newspaper Der Spiegel. She's expected to officially announce her run in 2016.
Should Merkel win a fourth term, the first female chancellor would find
herself right behind the longest-serving leaders in German history,
Helmut Köhl and Otto von Bismarck.There's no obvious successor in place
and Merkel is popular in polls. Click bellow for Full details
Peter
Tauber, secretary general of Merkel's Christian Democrat (CDU) party
and effectively its campaign manager, declined to comment directly when
Reuters enquired about the report.
Merkel,
who turned 61 on July 17, has not made any public comments about
whether she would run for a fourth term, although she did hint in a
speech in Cologne last year she would stand again. She is on holiday
hiking in the Alps.
Merkel,
who has guided Europe's biggest economy through the 2008 financial
crisis and euro zone turmoil, regularly ranks as one of Germany's most
popular leaders, which is unusual for a sitting chancellor.There are no
term limits in Germany and the last CDU chancellor, Helmut Kohl, served
for 16 years before losing his bid for a fifth term in 1998 to Gerhard
Schroeder of the Social Democrats (SPD). Neither were as popular among
voters as Merkel.
In
a country that cherishes stability, Merkel is only the eighth post-war
chancellor. She has no obvious rivals in the CDU. Der Spiegel claim she
held a strategy meeting recently with Tauber and party manager Klaus
Schueler to discuss the campaign.
"The
campaign operations should be based in CDU party headquarters," the
magazine said. "As a result of that meeting, the first staff workers are
being recruited."
Merkel
is so popular in Germany that one SPD leader, Schleswig-Holstein state
premier Torsten Albig, said recently the SPD should not bother putting
up a candidate to run against her in 2017. "She's doing an excellent
job," Albig told NDR TV.
There
was speculation two years ago that Merkel would step down in the middle
of her current term but that was denied by her spokesman Steffen
Seibert, who said Merkel would decide about a fourth term nearer to the
election due in late 2017.
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