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Austerity, far-right, Uyghurs: Merkel's ambivalent legacy
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel takes off her face mask as she prepares to lead the last cabinet meeting of the German government ahead of the national elections at the chancellery in Berlin, on September 22, 2021. (AFP/Markus Schreiber/Pool)
Crises have a knack for felling leaders. Not Chancellor Angela Merkel.
During 16 years in power, the veteran navigated Germany through the 2008 financial turmoil and ensuing eurozone debt crisis, the 2015 refugee influx and now the coronavirus pandemic.
"Merkel has experienced more global crises than Macron, Johnson and Trump added together," noted Zeit weekly, referring to contemporaries in France, Britain and the United States.
While largely admired at home and abroad even in the final weeks of her reign, the legacy she leaves behind is marked both by light and shadows.
Party in crisis
Merkel scraped to a narrow win in 2005 against then-incumbent chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of the Social Democrats, putting her conservative CDU-CSU alliance on the path of power for over a decade.
At the zenith of her popularity, Merkel led the conservatives to a thumping win with 41.5 percent of votes in 2013. With her track record, she was able to end a crucial TV election debate that year with the simple closing words "you know me".
