Leadership check (3): Merkel wins, Díaz-Canel loses

The second season of Atalayar on Capital Radio comes to a close in style. In these last days before the holidays, we are left with the bad taste in our mouths of the Cuban people's struggle against the tyranny that has been beating them for six decades, but for the programme's team, made up of Atalayar.com, directed by Javier Fernández Arribas, and thanks to the assistance of the channel directed by Luis Vicente Muñoz, the satisfaction of having completed this second season by providing our analysis of major world events remains. These have been months plagued by issues of international relevance, such as the changeover in the White House, the assault on Capitol Hill or the Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab countries, and the weekly scrutiny of the experts that Atalayar on Capital Radio has provided has never missed its Monday night appointment. And so we hope it will continue to be in the coming season, which will begin with nothing less than an election in Germany for the most important woman in world politics in the last quarter of a century.

Angela Merkel is the absolute star of the end of the year in the programme. Coinciding with the end of the season, we have carried out the third World Leadership Barometer, after the one that in December elected, with the votes of the programme's collaborators, Merkel herself as the best leader of 2020 and Donald Trump as the worst, and the other that in spring elevated Joe Biden and Mario Draghi as the best and Nicolás Maduro as the worst. Some forty analysts from the digital media and the programme have once again voted for the best and the worst, and the German chancellor, on her way out and seeing how a natural catastrophe once again puts her leadership to the test in her country, is once again chosen as the best leader on the entire planet, perhaps due to the proximity of her farewell and in recognition of a political work of two decades that has reinforced European values and has demonstrated an incombustible management capacity for her citizens. Merkel has twice as many votes as the second best leader, also a woman: Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, who has to distribute reconstruction funds for the pandemic. Close behind is Mario Draghi, who drops to third place with his all-party Italian government and its effectiveness in tackling the problems afflicting his country. Joe Biden falls even further, from first to fourth place, which seems to indicate a certain wariness of his foreign policy, despite his return to multilateralism and the transatlantic relationship.

On the side of the worst, the winner in this third edition of the Barometer is Miguel Díaz-Canel, Castroism's dauphin placed as president after Raúl's step backwards. The communist dictatorship is not budging despite half the country's protests in the streets, and the violent repression shows that it will not give an inch in its repression against its own people. The closeness and importance of the events in Cuba may have moved most of the Atalayar commentators to vote for Canel, but his "award" is nonetheless well-deserved. In the meantime, we are still waiting for an opening of this unacceptable regime, the legalisation of political parties and the calling of free elections on the island. We will not despair. Following the Cuban, although at a great distance, is another dictator dressed up as a democrat, Daniel Ortega, the repressive president of Nicaragua. Three presidents tie for third place as the worst world leader: Bolsonaro, Maduro and Pedro Sánchez. The first two, for issues already known. In the case of the third, recent issues such as the crisis with Morocco and the ridiculous half-minute walk with Biden have earned him his third negative position in the ranking we compiled.

Once again there are curious situations in the Barometer that closes the radio season. Up to three leaders have been voted best and worst in recent months. They are Von der Leyen, Hungary's Viktor Orban and the Moroccan King Mohamed VI. And there is a third woman who has once been voted the best in the world at her post: New Zealander Jacinda Arden, who captivates many people in this hemisphere.