What’s so important about Angela Merkel’s leadership in Germany?
Better detached rather that engaged and reactive before ideological
Angela Merkel’s Germany is famed for having achieved an equilibrium that both leftists and right-wingers find appealing; one where prosperity must be earned and fairly distributed. Nowadays in Germany, the state is not the people’s boss, but rather a support for its people, diversity grows, and refugees successfully integrate to civil life.
The German chancellor has remained in power since 2005 and she’s likely to remain in office for a fourth term after September’s elections. Her political party is a center-right one called CDU and has powerful alliances with the Christian Social Union (SPD), the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), and the pro-business Free Democrats (FPD). The German politician has achieved overall legitimacy.
The leader’s success is often attributed to her personality. Angela Merkel rarely talks about herself; Merkel, rather than working in a grand desk in a great Berlin chamber, likes to center herself in a quiet corner of a meeting room. Her heroes are Konrad Adenauer –German’s first post war leader- and Catherine the Great, her Lutheran faith is dubbed as “an inner compass”. Her life experience in East Germany made her frugal.
Read also: Merkel 4.0
Germany’s conformable economic position reduces its people’s incentives to seek for a change, as the favorable conditions were fostered by Gerhard Schroder, the SPD chancellor that came before Angela Merkel who generated successful labor reforms, conquered a low-interest rate, good parity on the euro, and an efficient oil market. Angela Merkel’s role is one of an administrator over a reformer.
Even though Merkel has received positive feedback, the bottom 40% of the German workforce is earning less than what they used to earn 20 years ago and the rate of investment in the last 5 years has also decreased. In addition, the national infrastructure is also suffering, roads are cracking and bridges show the passing of time. Scandals on air emissions make big automakers’ credibility tumble.
General criticism over Angela Merkel’s leadership involves not taking enough caution about Germany’s future internally, but keeping a deep sense of importance on the global economic and politic order of which Germany is the European power externally.
Nevertheless, Angela Merkel’s psychology, refined sense of strategy and balanced ideals were recognized by the Pew Research Centre, which asked people from 37 nations about world leaders and their trustworthiness. Donald Trump was defined as incoherent, Theresa May’s Great Britain was defined as unpredictable, and France’s Emmanuel Macron as too young.
Angela Merkel is labeled as the new “de facto” leader of the new world, and Pew Research Centre proved it true as the German Chancellor was the only politician in which people expressed more confidence when compared to her international counterparts.
Latin American Post |David Eduardo Rodríguez Acevedo
Copy edited by Susana Cicchetto
