Merkel's Nachsommermärchen?
in German Politics and SocietyNot once during the campaign—or actually over the whole course of the
seventeenth Bundestag (2009-2013)—was it ever really in doubt that Angela
Merkel would continue as chancellor after the 22 September 2013 parliamentary
election. Despite the vicissitudes of governing for eight years, most
in the midst of the financial and Euro crisis, she has achieved and sustained
some of the highest approval ratings of any postwar German politician. Voters
trust Merkel as a good manager of the economy and an honest steward
and defender of German interests in Europe. Her carefully cultivated image
as a steady, reassuring, and incorruptible leader, coupled with her political
acumen, ideological flexibility and, at times, ruthlessness—captured in the
dueling monikers of Mutti Merkel and Merkelavelli1—are the keys to her
profound success.
