She has outlasted two U.S. presidents, three French leaders, six Italian prime ministers and three British ones. Once again, German voters decided the woman they call “Mutti” (mother) — a leader who opposes President Trump on major foreign issues — knows best. Angela Merkel’s victory Sunday in national parliamentary elections means Germany’s first female chancellor and daughter of a Lutheran pastor who grew up under Communism in East Germany, secures a fourth term.Merkel, 63, extends her 12-year tenure as Europe’s longest-serving democratically elected leader.Her achievement is not just an exercise in political endurance, but also a triumph for her governing formula: pragmatic, centrist, fair. Merkel’s win was tainted by the emergence of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, a right-wing nationalist group, as the country’s third-largest, but her methods and manner were validated, experts said. ”She does her job. She does it quietly. She does it efficiently. The economy is doing fine. There has been no mood for change at the top,” said Michael Wohlgemuth, an expert on political and economic affairs at the Berlin office of Open Europe, a think tank.”Germans feel pretty good about themselves compared to our neighbors,” he added.Final results released Monday showed Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc won 33% of the vote, enough to remain the largest… Read full this story
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