FILLING THE VOID
She has been described as the leader of the free world, “the European Union’s indispensable broker of compromises and a totemic champion of Western values”.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister John Key once ranked her as the world’s top conservative leader. “She’s great company and she is hugely influential in Europe and I highly respect her,” he gushed on the eve of her visit to New Zealand in 2014.
“Neither economic strength nor political stability, the two cornerstones of the Merkel era’s foreign policy prominence, are guaranteed.”
Others have described her quite simply as the world’s most powerful woman. She has led Germany, and Europe, through many crises: financial, societal and medical. And now Angela Merkel is leaving.
As Chancellor of Germany, Merkel has been in charge of the country for 16 years. She has been around longer than the iPhone, and almost as long as first-time voters at upcoming federal elections on September 26 have been alive. She has seen six American and French presidents, four British and three New Zealand prime ministers come and go.
Like Key, the 67-year-old has ensured she is leaving on her own terms. She will be Germany’s
