Hero of the migrant crisis Angela Merkel named Time’s Person of the Year

German chancellor Angela Merkel has been named Time magazine’s person of the year for 2015. It praised her leadership during Europe’s debt, refugee and migrant crises, plus Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. Ms Merkel has provided “steadfast moral leadership in a world where it is in short supply”, editor Nancy Gibbs wrote. Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was named runner-up. Third place went to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

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.

Time editor Nancy Gibbs

Ms Merkel, who has been in power in Germany for a decade, joins an eclectic list of former winners, including Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mahatma Ghandi, Winston Churchill and Richard Nixon. Last year’s award went to medics fighting the Ebola outbreak in western Africa. In the magazine’s article explaining why she deserved the honor, it praised the German leader’s handling of “not one but two existential crises, either of which could have meant the end of the union that has kept peace on the continent for seven decades”. A pastor’s daughter who grew up behind the Iron Curtain, the 61-year-old made an unprecedented journey to become chancellor and is now regarded as the world’s most powerful woman.

She is not taking the easy road. Leaders are tested only when people don’t want to follow

Time editor Nancy Gibbs

Politics merkel time