Time’s Person Of The Year: It’s Not Donald Trump

German Chancellor Angela
Merkel has been named Time’s Person of the Year, praised Wednesday by the
magazine for her leadership on everything from Syrian refugees to the Greek
debt crisis.

Time also cited Merkel’s
strong response to “Vladimir Putin’s creeping theft of Ukraine” and
on its cover called her “Chancellor of the Free World.”

“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 statecraft,” Time editor Nancy Gibbs wrote.
“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.”

WATCH: Did Trump Deserve The Honor?

Merkel, 61, is just the
fourth woman since 1927 to be chosen and the first since opposition leader
Corazon C. Aquino of the Philippines in 1986. She is the first German since
Willy Brandt, the West German chancellor named in 1970 for “seeking to
bring about a fresh relationship between East and West” during the Cold
War. In 1999, Time picked the German-born Albert Einstein as Person of the
Century.

Wednesday’s news came in
as Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert was leading a government press conference
in the German capital, while Merkel herself was at an event in Leipzig. When
asked about it by The Associated Press, Seibert said he had only just received
word on his phone himself.

“I’m sure the
chancellor will regard this as an encouragement for her political work, for a
good future for Germany as well as for Europe,” Seibert said.

The other finalists
included Donald Trump, who for months has topped Republican polls for the 2016
U.S. presidential election and dominated headlines.

I told you @TIME Magazine would never pick me as person of the year despite being the big favorite They picked person who is ruining Germany

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2015

“I told you (at)TIME
Magazine would never pick me as person of the year despite being the big
favorite,” he tweeted soon after Time’s announcement. “They picked
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.