The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel is Time’s Person of the Year

On the cover of the magazine, Merkel is referred to as ‘Chancellor of the Free World’. On its pages, she is praised for her leadership during the Syrian refugees crisis and the Greek debt crisis, and for her response to “Vladimir Putin’s creeping theft of Ukraine”.

Time editor Nancy Gibbs wrote of Merkel: “Not once or twice but three times there has been reason to wonder this year whether Europe could continue to exist, not culturally or geographically but as a historic experiment in ambitious statecrafte. You can agree with her or not, but she is not taking the easy road. Leaders are tested only when people don’t want to follow. For asking more of her country than most politicians would dare, for standing firm against tyranny as well as expedience and for providing steadfast moral leadership in a world where it is in short supply, Angela Merkel is TIME’s Person of the Year.”

Merkel  is just the fourth woman to be given the title. The last woman was opposition leader Corazon C. Aquino of the Philippines in 1986.

But not everyone welcomed Merkel’s achievement.

Merkel has been criticised for ruling out same-sex marriage in Germany earlier this year, despite public support from the majority of the public. She has also been criticized for demanding unduly harsh terms for Greece.
Donald Trump was among the nominees. He tweeted after Time’s announcement, “I told you @TIME Magazine would never pick me as person of the year despite being the big favorite. They picked the person who is ruining Germany.”

The other candidates for 2015 were Caitlyn Jenner, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the Black Lives Matter protest movement, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.