Europe saw Merkel

Her talk on October 29 was made up of carefully numbered points - a list as dramatic as a shopping list. But she was declaring the end of her reign.

In December, Mrs. Merkel will resign as chairman of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), finishing almost two decades as leader of the most powerful political party in Germany.

She also confirmed what many had long assumed -- that this is her last term as German Chancellor.

She added that she was a “ready to remain Chancellor until the end of the current parliament in 2021, clearly aware that, with the decline of her power, she may not be able to stay Chancellor.

Mrs. Merkel's announcement came a day after regional elections in the German state of Hessen. Its Democrats won the most votes by 27%, and its close ally, Volker Bouffier, appears to remain prime minister.

However, it was a devastating loss for the support her party once had, with more than 11 percentage points lower compared to 2013. The centre-left Social Democrat Party (SPD) also lost about 11% of the vote, marking only 20%.

Polls show that many of their voters in Hessen wanted to punish the central government in Berlin, where Mrs. Merkel's conservative bloc governs the coalition with the SPD. Coalition parties have lost much of this year, being distracted by internal fighting.

Voters are sick of it. “is a clear signal that this cannot continue so”, the Chancellor said.

After 13 years under the direction of Miss Merkel as Chancellor, Germany is ready for change. But at first glance it's not clear why. The economy is stronger than ever, with unemployment at a long time low.

The country has managed to deal well with the large influx of asylum seekers in 2015 and 2016, and since then migrants' arrivals have dropped dramatically. The refugee issue was rarely mentioned in elections campaigns in Hessen.

“Incompatibility is not about politics, but about the way policy is done”, says Thorsten Hasas, from Berlin Free University. Fights in Berlin occur because politicians are out of the question and more interested in their jobs than serving the country. Loyalty to traditional parties has also weakened, and voters are less likely to vote according to their affiliation at a union, in church or in a particular social class.

Politics has become more about identity and debate amid open-to-door questions, which centre-left greens and right-wing populist alternatives to Germany ( The AfD is clear, so the success of both sides is explained. The CDU and the SPD, on the other hand, are divided from the inside into migration issues. In Hessen, the right centre of the CDU has an equal number of voters with Turkey and AfD.

Mrs. Merkel's successor will have to decide where to position the party. Keep her centre course and lose more voters to AfD? Or lean down a more conservative route and risk having liberals emigrate to the Green? In December delegates at the CDU party conference in Hamburg would answer that question by choosing a new leader who would also be the party's next choice as Chancellor.

Battle has begun

So far, there are three declared candidates. Friedrich Merz, a former leader of the parliamentary party, was one of Merkel's first victims on its way to the leader. After she defeated him for a key party post in 2002, he left politics to work in finance, then becoming chairman of the BlackRock German Board of Watchers, an asset management company.

He has the qualities of a social conservative, a charismatic leader, and is close to business. He has often hit Mrs. Merkel's government from a distance. It is hard to imagine that it could extend its full mandate as Chancellor with him as party leader and that he is the man to be guarded from.

Another conservative hopeful is Jens Spahn, Germany's Health Minister. He is young, ambitious and sincere critic of Merkel's refugee policy, making him a complicated party leader for him. Popular with the right trend of the CDU, he likes to associate with Austria's new conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Donald Trump's open ambassador to Berlin, Richard Green. His thoughts are not that they are very compatible with members of centrist parties and voters.

Mrs. Merkel's favourite candidate is Annagret Kramp-Carrenbauer, whom she chose in February as the party's general secretary, following an experience as the state prime minister of Saarland (the second smallest state of Germany).

It is seen as an ally of Merkel, not a plus for a party that requires change. But it also maintains some more conservative social attitudes than the Chancellor. It can tend towards Germany's political centre, where elections are usually won, even though this may now be changing. However, it still has to come out of Miss Merkel's shadow.

This week has produced bad news for AfD. The Chancellor has been a helpful figure in promoting hatred. Merkel must leave”, has been a key slogan for years, and would be a feature of the AfD campaigns in the elections of three East German states next year. A major concern for the AfD is that a more conservative leader can lure back some dissatisfied voters.

May I continue Mrs. Merkel? That depends on whether she can co-operate with the future leader of her party, and whether the new party chairman will be the far-right coalition partners (SPD) will have the impossible to keep up the coalition.

Meanwhile, outside Germany, liberals are already grieving the expected loss of “free world leader” a title she never liked. Germany's foreign policy is more than just one person. But as a tough negotiator capable of collecting heads together, Mrs. Merkel will feel very lacking. /Mapo.al