German Chancellor Angela Merkel told her party Sunday she will seek re-election next year, a move likely to be welcomed in many capitals as a sign of stability following poll triumphs for Brexit and Donald Trump.
After months of feverish speculation, Merkel announced at a meeting with other leaders of her conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) that she would run for a fourth term, a decision they met with thunderous applause, party sources told AFP.
Merkel, 62, has governed Europe's top economic power, which does not have term limits, since 2005. She is due to hold a news conference at 1800 GMT Sunday.
Another full four-year mandate, which pollsters say she is likely to win, would tie the post-war record set by her mentor Helmut Kohl, who presided over the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.
Merkel told the meeting she had struggled to make up her mind, the sources said, but concluded that Germany needed a strong CDU, which has no clear successor to the woman who has led the party since 2000.
She added that next year's campaign would "not be a cakewalk". Merkel represents "stability and reliability in turbulent times because she holds society together and stands up to over-simplification" by populists, CDU deputy leader Julia Kloeckner told Welt am Sonntag newspaper earlier Sunday. "She stands for moderation and centrism instead of cheap headlines."
Merkel is the first woman, the youngest person and the only candidate who grew up in communist East Germany to lead the reunited country. A pastor's daughter and trained physicist, Merkel is popular among Germans who see her as a straight-shooter and a safe pair of hands in a crisis.
But her decision to let in more than one million asylum seekers over the last two years dented her support.
It also revived the fortunes of the rightwing populist Alternative for Germany party (AfD), which has harnessed widespread anxiety about migration.
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