BERLIN \u2014 Angela Merkel, who has steered Germany through several global crises as its first female leader, said Sunday she will seek a fourth term as chancellor in elections next year, when she could find herself up against the anti-immigrant populist tide that has swept both Europe and the U.S.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI literally thought about this decision endlessly \u2026 but I am ready to run for office again,\u201d Merkel told reporters after meeting with high-ranking members of her center-right party. \u201cI want to serve Germany.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Repeatedly named \u201cThe World\u2019s Most Powerful Woman\u201d by Forbes magazine, Merkel, 62, has been cast by some as the last powerful defender of liberal values in the West following Donald Trump\u2019s election as the next U.S. president.<\/span><\/p>\n The nationalist Alterative for Germany party, or AfD, could prove to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks to her re-election. The party, now represented in 10 state parliaments, has aggressively campaigned against Merkel\u2019s decision to welcome an estimated 890,000 migrants into Germany last year, many of them Muslims fleeing the war-torn Middle East and Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n Trump\u2019s election and Britain\u2019s vote last June to withdraw from the European Union have reflected, in part, growing populist and anti-immigrant sentiment among voters. Elections next year could also see a far-right politician become president of France, which has been beset by violence by Islamic extremists.<\/span><\/p>\n Merkel said she expects strong challenges from the left and right fringes as Germany has become more polarized.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis election will be difficult \u2014 like no other election since the reunification\u201d of West and East Germany in 1990, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n A date has not been set for the election, but it will take place sometime between Aug. 23 and Oct. 22.<\/span><\/p>\n Clearly the dominant leader in Europe, Merkel urged caution against outsized expectations about what she might yet achieve.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cEverything that\u2019s about how it all depends on me, especially after the elections in the U.S., honors me, but at the same time I find it very much grotesque and almost bizarre,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNo person \u2026 not even with the biggest experience, can turn things in Germany, Europe and in the world more or less to the good, and especially not the chancellor of Germany.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Merkel will also seek re-election as chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union party at its convention next month but faces no serious opposition.<\/span><\/p>\n A physicist by training, Merkel became chancellor in 2005. She is the first leader of a reunited Germany to have grown up under communism in the former East Germany.<\/span><\/p>\n If she wins next year and serves the entire four-year term, Merkel will match her one-time mentor Helmut Kohl\u2019s postwar record of 16 years in office.<\/span><\/p>\n Nearly 60% of Germans surveyed in a recent poll said they wanted Merkel to run again, said Manfred Guellner, head of the Forsa polling agency.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn these difficult times, Merkel is a pillar of stability,\u201d Guellner told the Associated Press. \u201cPeople have the feeling she represents German interests well abroad.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n While she has never been described as a visionary or earned much praise for stirring speeches, Merkel \u2014 sometimes referred to as \u201cMutti,\u201d or \u201cMom,\u201d in Germany \u2014 has won respect for being tough, shrewd and dogged in tackling problems.<\/span><\/p>\n She has dealt with several international crises, including the Eurozone debt crisis in 2008-09 for which she brokered compromises among fractious EU leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n She has been a strong advocate of efforts to combat climate change, and in 2011 abruptly accelerated the shutdown of Germany\u2019s nuclear power plants following the meltdown at Japan\u2019s Fukushima plant.<\/span><\/p>\n Unresolved diplomatic challenges include Europe\u2019s tense relationship with Russia, the future of Ukraine, autocratic developments in Turkey, the war in Syria and negotiations over Britain\u2019s exit from the EU.<\/span><\/p>\n In elections in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania earlier this year, Merkel\u2019s party came in third behind the AfD. According to recent polls, the AfD would win around 10% of the vote if general elections were held now.<\/span><\/p>\n Merkel, the daughter of a Protestant pastor, entered politics in her mid-30s after working as a physicist behind the Iron Curtain. She served as minister for women and families in Kohl\u2019s first post-reunification Cabinet in the 1990s and then also as an environment minister.<\/span><\/p>\n In the beginning of her political career, she was often underestimated by her mostly male, Catholic, West German party companions, who sometimes referred to her condescendingly as \u201cKohl\u2019s girl.\u201d In the end, she eliminated her rivals with tactical skill and sheer luck to make it all the way to the top in 2005.<\/span><\/p>\n While Merkel often appears reserved and even stiff in public, she has tried in past campaigns to show a more human side. She opened up about her favorite pastimes outside politics, which include baking plum cake for her husband, the publicity-shy chemistry professor Joachim Sauer, and spending weekends at a cabin outside Berlin.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI can see how Merkel has this personal ambition to show the people that she, who used to be such an outsider when she first entered politics as an East German and a woman, made it all the way,\u201d said Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at Berlin\u2019s Free University.<\/span><\/p>\n Source:\u00a0http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/world\/2016\/11\/20\/germanys-merkel-seek-fourth-term-face-populist-tide\/94173058\/<\/span><\/p>\n