Weekend Economists Celebrate Harry Potter's 35th Birthday July 31st, 2015

[Demeter]

35. Merkel to run for fourth term in 2017

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/01/us-germany-merkel-idUSKCN0Q636920150801

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has governed Germany since 2005, has decided to run for a fourth term and has started planning her 2017 re-election campaign, Der Spiegel news magazine said on Saturday in an unsourced report.

Peter Tauber, secretary general of Merkel's Christian Democrat (CDU) party and effectively its campaign manager, declined to comment directly when asked by Reuters about the report.

"It's the summer silly season - haven't you noticed?" Tauber replied on Twitter when asked about the report.

Merkel, who turned 61 on July 17, has not made any public comments about whether she would run for a fourth term, although she did hint in a speech in Cologne last year she would stand again. She is on holiday hiking in the Alps.

Merkel, who has guided Europe's biggest economy through the 2008 financial crisis and euro zone turmoil, regularly ranks as one of Germany's most popular leaders, which is unusual for a sitting chancellor.

There are no term limits in Germany and the last CDU chancellor, Helmut Kohl, served for 16 years before losing his bid for a fifth term in 1998 to Gerhard Schroeder of the Social Democrats (SPD). Neither were as popular among voters as Merkel.

In a country that cherishes stability, Merkel is only the eighth post-war chancellor. She has no obvious rivals in the CDU.

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Merkel is so popular in Germany that one SPD leader, Schleswig-Holstein state premier Torsten Albig, said recently the SPD should not bother putting up a candidate to run against her in 2017. "She's doing an excellent job," Albig told NDR TV.