After a decade and a half, the era of German Chancellor Angela Merkel is coming to an end. Having chosen not to run in national elections this month, she will become the country’s first premier to leave power of her own volition.
If negotiations to form a new government drag on after the Sept. 26 vote, she could overtake Helmut Kohl as modern Germany’s longest-serving leader. She is the doyenne of European politics — a generation of young Germans remembers no one else at the helm.
Her admirers have hailed her as everything from the
leader of the free world to a contemporary Joan of Arc — grand portrayals she has always spurned. Yet she has been repeatedly named among the world’s
most powerful women. President Barack Obama, among her most enduring advocates, described her as an outstanding global political leader.