BERLIN — The move last fall by Angela Merkel came as a surprise: Ignore European Union procedures. Let the refugees come. The defiance even more so: “I have to honestly say, if we now have to start apologizing for showing a friendly face during an emergency situation, then this is not my country.”
And with those fighting words, the German chancellor set off on a path toward certain political doom, according to pundits. “It’s the beginning of the end,” intoned influential German weekly Die Zeit. “So ends the myth of the crisis manager who never loses.”
Many say she is facing an unprecedented level of political opposition because of her stance on the refugees streaming into Germany. So is she on her way out? Nein, say most observers.
This is Merkel, after all — the “Teflon Chancellor” is one of the many monikers she has earned in her decade in office. She has weathered crisis after crisis, and observers say there is no reason to think that won’t be the case this time.
“If you take two steps back, you’ll see that the chancellor’s popularity ratings have gone down recently but she also had similar moments in the past 10 years,” says Ralf Welt, head of dimap communications, a political think tank and Berlin-based pollster. “She’s always managed to work it out.”
The refugee crisis — with almost a million refugees expected in Germany by the end of 2015 — is the crisis of Merkel’s tenure, says Gero Neugebauer, a professor of politics at Free University of Berlin. But he doubts she is on her way out. Upcoming state elections — a good measure of national sentiment — in the spring and fall will provide a good clue.
“We will see if this crisis has an impact come spring,” he says. “Mrs. Merkel has become famous with the slogan, ‘There is no alternative.’ And indeed, there is no alternative.”
How quickly we forget
Merkel is Europe’s longest-serving leader. In 2015, she became the only woman to rank second on Forbes’ list of the world’s most powerful people. Time magazine named her Person of the Year in December, calling her the “Chancellor of the Free World.” Yet, many say, she is constantly underestimated.
Pundits have forecast many crises as the one to bring her down. She’s overcome them all: the European sovereign debt crisis (she promised no bailouts to Greece); the scandal over the U.S. National Security Agency spying on Germans (she said she knew nothing); a near decade-long neo-Nazi crime spree highlighting the failure of the intelligence services; her about-face on nuclear energy (she extended nuclear power by 14 years then reversed herself).
At the lowest point of her first two terms, in 2010-2011, she was accused of lying, lacking direction and dubbed “Frau Flip Flop” as her popularity dropped dramatically. More than half of Germans were unsatisfied with her. Cracks began to appear among the faithful within the ruling Christian Democratic Union and its coalition with the Free Democrats. Her party lost support in multiple state elections, including her constituency of Mecklenburg-Pomerania, and conservative, wealthy Baden-Württemberg, a CDU stronghold for 58 years.
Still, Merkel’s party and her coalition government often bear more blame for their failures than the chancellor, says Welt. “Even when her party has been weakened, she often has high popular ratings.”
Part of her popularity can be attributed to her style of leadership. Pragmatic, deliberative and cautious, she often seemingly takes no real stand. To “Merkeln” is now a German slang verb for “not making a decision.”
“You could say her predecessors had a system, but not Merkel,” says Herfried Münkler, a political scientist at Berlin’s Humboldt University. “The decisive point with Merkel is that there is no decisive point, and that over a long time has accounted for her invulnerability.”
Merkel has straddled both the left and right in Germany, bringing the CDU firmly into the center. The approach has attracted leftish swing voters, say analysts.
Her reassuring style — the “Wir schaffen das” (we’ll manage) — has earned her the moniker “Mutti” (Mommy) and kept stability-hungry Germans in her corner following the turbulence after the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification, the painful economic reforms of the 2000s and the recent euro crisis.
“In certain respects you can say this need for the center, which she met through her calm and moderate approach, reflects a state of psychological exhaustion after the great efforts of recent years and far-reaching changes,” says Münkler. “That is where this misogynistic expression of ‘Mutti’ came from: The caressing and warming of an unstable soul — that is what ‘Mutti’ conveys.”
Ruling with the heart
Merkel’s polling is down, as is that of her party. Members of the CDU are openly distancing themselves from her, and the Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, is in open revolt. Party leaders are looking to spring elections with dismay, worried that the Alternative For Deutschland and other right-wing parties will siphon off voters in large numbers.
Some say that is surprising consider Germany’s expanded political weight on the world stage or its economic successes under Merkel’s tenure: The country’s unemployment rate last October of 4.5 percent is less than half the figure when Merkel took office in 2005. But Germans rarely credit Merkel for Germany’s economic turnaround, or her political clout and diplomatic successes.
Instead, unusually, refugees is the single topic that voters care about now, says Welt. Merkel has backtracked since August, saying little as the government clamps down on newcomers via a new law cutting welfare benefits, easing deportation and restricting family reunification.
That’s a response to complaints from overwhelmed state and municipal leaders, concerns over the cost of absorbing the refugees, worries over Islamic extremism and terrorism and outrage by fellow Europeans at her go-it alone approach she’s adopted in the crisis.
So why did Merkel take the risk of welcoming large numbers of refugees? Some analysts say leaders late in their tenure are more likely to do what they want, eager to secure their legacy. Others say Merkel wants to show that the Germany of economic might and unflinching austerity policies has a human face. German weekly Der Spiegel attributed it to her background as a clergyman’s daughter, saying “the real Merkel” rules with her heart.
But most don’t even try to explain it.
“I was absolutely amazed by the high personal risks she took to do this,” says Welt about the chancellor’s approach to refugees. “For the first time, she didn’t moderate. She didn’t wait. Instead, she took the lead. She really demonstrated leadership, which she has rarely done in national politics in the past 10 years, and then only doing so for practical or political reasons.”
And don’t forget the comfort factor, adds Münkler.
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Merkel: The Steady Hand That Is Popular originally appeared on usnews.com
