Merkel will seek a fourth term, faces anti-immigrant populist tide

Angela Merkel, who has steered Germany through several global crises as its first female leader, said on 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 United States.

"I literally thought about this decision endlessly,... but I am ready to run for office again," Merkel told reporters after meeting with high-ranking members of her center-right party. "I want to serve Germany."

The 62-year-old has repeatedly been named "the world's most powerful woman" by Forbes magazine.

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's decision to welcome an estimated 890,000 migrants into Germany last year, many of them Muslims fleeing the war-torn Middle East and Africa.

Donald Trump's election and Britain's 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 extremists.

Merkel said she expects strong challenges from the left and right fringes as Germany has become more polarized.

"This election will be difficult like no other election since the reunification" of West and East Germany in 1990, she said.

"Everything that's about how it all depends on me, especially after the elections in the US, honors me, but at the same time I find it very much grotesque and almost bizarre," she said.

"No person ... 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."

A physicist by training, Merkel became chancellor in 2005. If she wins next year and serves the entire four-year term, Merkel will match her one-time mentor Helmut Kohl's postwar record of 16 years in office.

Nearly 60 percent of Germans surveyed in a recent poll said they wanted Merkel to run again, said Manfred Guellner, head of the Forsa polling agency.