BERLIN — For a dozen years, Chancellor Angela Merkel made her calm and consensual leadership style as much a part of the German landscape as castles, precision engineering, and Oktoberfests.
But the early days of her 13th year in office have been marked by a bracing return to earth. Merkel’s rapidly diminishing political stock threatens to leave a void not only in Germany, but across the West, even though she had emerged as the most robust internationalist counterpoint to Trump-style nationalism.
Merkel’s troubles started with a disappointing election result in September and grew when her first attempt at forging a new government collapsed in November. They have been compounded in recent days, as polls have shown German voters tiring of her leadership.
Merkel now has what many regard as a last shot to assemble a coalition and ward off an embarrassing electoral do-over that could see her lose her grip on power.
‘‘Time is running out,’’ said Stefan Kornelius, a Merkel biographer. ‘‘She is under immense pressure to somehow make this happen.’’
Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats, their Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union, and their previous partners, the Social Democrats, will sit down Sunday for a new round of talks aimed at forming a coalition.
But even if Merkel succeeds, significant damage to her power has already been done, analysts say.
Once regarded as invincible, Merkel is suddenly vulnerable in a way that has shifted the German political conversation to a topic long whispered about but rarely publicly debated before: Who should come next?
Many prospects have been discussed in German newspapers and magazines in recent days, but for now, at least, there is no obvious successor.
Merkel has played an outsized role in global affairs, though not always willingly. The low-key East German with a PhD in quantum chemistry has become de facto leader of Europe and keeper of the flame for those who regard President Trump’s brand of politics as a threat to core Western values.
‘‘The world is engulfed by Trumpism and populism and vulgarianism,’’ said Kornelius, a journalist with Munich’s Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. ‘‘The alternative is not even visible any more. Merkel has to prove that the alternative can still exist.’’
She might not have the chance.
Over her dozen years in office, Merkel has guided Germany to robust economic health, with strong GDP growth and low unemployment. Her decision to welcome more than 1 million asylum seekers in 2015-2016 galvanized the far right but was supported by the political mainstream. She has navigated a series of European crises, from the war in Ukraine to Greek debt.
Before the September elections, political observers had widely assumed that Merkel would once again coast to victory, with a clear shot at matching the record 16-year tenure of her onetime mentor, Helmut Kohl.
Instead, her center-right Christian Democratic Union suffered its worst result since 1949, including the loss of a million of its voters to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
While the CDU still came out on top of a fractured field, Merkel was forced to pursue an unwieldy deal among her own conservative bloc, the pro-business Free Democrats, and the environmentalist Greens.
When the Free Democrats unexpectedly backed out, Merkel had to go to plan B: a revival of the grand coalition between the center-right and the center-left that has governed Europe’s largest economy for the past four years.
Substantive talks are only now getting underway, with a deal not expected before April, if one comes at all. It’s already the longest that postwar Germany has ever gone after an election without a government.
Although voters didn’t initially appear to blame Merkel, polls suggest she has increasingly become the target of frustration with the very un-German gridlock and dysfunction.
A survey published by the Bild newspaper in late December showed that nearly half the country did not want her to complete a fourth term. A poll released days later by Die Welt had even worse news for Merkel: Nearly half the country would like her to step down right away.
The Social Democrats, the government’s would-be junior partner, are desperate to get rid of Merkel. Her tenure has corresponded with a free fall in the party’s popularity as the chancellor has shifted to the center and co-opted the Social Democrats’ core issues. The party’s rank and file will have to approve any deal, which could prove a hurdle.
Even Merkel’s own party, which has long been disciplined in supporting her, may have a reason to see her go early, since it will want to ensure an orderly transition to her successor.
