Frankfurt’s mayor before the deselection?

In March 2018, Peter Feldmann was at the peak of his career. As incumbent mayor, he defeated the CDU challenger Bernadette Weyland in the run-off election with a whopping 70.8 percent – ​​a triumph. The citizens of Frankfurt entrusted the city to him for a second term. But only a year later, his crash began. In the meantime, even his own party, the SPD, has dropped him. A vote-out procedure will now take place on Sunday, because the majority of citizens want to get rid of him as quickly as possible. But there are very high hurdles for this – and Feldmann is counting on that.

Criminal proceedings for taking advantage

Since mid-October, proceedings against the head of Germany’s fifth-largest city have been pending before the large economic criminal chamber at the district court in Frankfurt am Main. The accusation of the public prosecutor’s office is: taking advantage, i.e. corruption. If convicted, he faces a fine or up to three years in prison. Feldmann vehemently denies all allegations.

In 2014, his partner at the time and now his wife Zübeyde Feldmann, from whom he now lives separately, was the head of a German-Turkish day-care center Workers’ Welfare (AWO) become. Without any objective reason, the woman received a salary well in excess of the collective bargaining agreement and a company car.

Peter Feldmann’s political life

According to the public prosecutor’s office, she is said to have received the position and the privileges because of Feldmann’s position as mayor and with his knowledge of a person responsible for the Frankfurt district association of the AWO. In addition, the AWO supported Feldmann in the 2018 election campaign for re-election by advertising donations. In return, he is said to have agreed – like a tacit agreement – with the former AWO managers that he will take the interests of the organization into account in a benevolent manner when carrying out his duties.

The Feldmann affair is part of the Scandals involving the southern Hessian AWO local branches in Frankfurt and Wiesbaden, which are about self-enrichment, grossly inflated salaries, flat rates for luxurious company cars, dubious subsidiaries and the misappropriation of funds and fraud. Several prosecutors are investigating.

Accusation amounts to a total loss

For the mayor and the SPD, the admission of the indictment is like a total loss. The 64-year-old has been a member of the party for almost fifty years and has made a career on her ticket. After studying political science and social management, Feldmann was from 1988 state manager of the SPD-affiliated youth organization Die Falken, then head of the training and youth center in Frankfurt and from 1996 policy officer of the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband. In 2008 he finally became the head of an AWO old people’s care center, which closes the circle to the welfare organization.

In addition, the native of Lower Saxony, who has lived in Frankfurt since he was two years old, was a city councilor in Frankfurt’s town hall, the Römer, from 1998 until his first election as mayor in 2012. Most of that time he was a member of the parliamentary group executive committee of the SPD and held the position of deputy parliamentary group leader from 2004 to 2012. When he was elected Lord Mayor, he prevailed against Boris Rhein, who was then Minister of the Interior for Hesse and is now Prime Minister.

In Romans currently reigns one Coalition of SPD, Greens, FDP and Volt. While the last three parties distanced themselves from Feldmann relatively quickly, the SPD did not ask their mayor to resign from office until the beginning of April if the main proceedings were to be approved. Like many other things, Feldmann didn’t really care. In this case, he just wanted to let his party membership rest and not run for office again in 2024, it said.

Intimate details from private life

In any case, resignation would be tantamount to an admission of guilt for him, Feldmann said recently on a day of negotiations. The process caused a stir in Hesse shortly after it started because, according to media reports, Feldmann revealed numerous intimate details from his private and family life – apparently in his defense. The relationship with his wife was a “love affair characterized by extreme ups and downs”. In 2015 they finally separated, which is why they were no longer a couple when the daycare center opened.

The apparently emotional reunion at the event then led to a pregnancy he did not want. That’s why he pushed for an abortion, but couldn’t prevail. Ultimately, he then married Zübeyde to give the family a chance and to take their cultural, i.e. Turkish background, into account. His estranged wife and daughter will have read these statements with interest.

The evening after the day of the hearing, he then published an “apology to my daughter” on the mayor’s official Facebook channel. The next day of the hearing was ultimately canceled because Feldmann presented two certificates certifying his inability to stand trial – partly because he was in a “mental state of emergency”.

Even before these deep insights into private life, Feldmann had attracted attention with various embarrassments. On the flight to a European Cup away game from Eintracht Frankfurt, he said during a speech to the around 200 fans traveling with him that the flight attendants had “hormonally put him out of action at the beginning”. What he considered a “stupid saying” was rated by many observers as “unacceptable sexism”.

And when the Frankfurt footballers sensationally won the European Cup, Feldmann snatched the object of desire from the puzzled coach Oliver Glasner and captain Sebastian Rode in front of the camera in a hallway in front of the camera, in order to brag about it to the fans himself. The “Cup-Klau” made it into the “Bild” newspaper and finally made Feldmann a national joke. The cloth for harmony has also been cut since then.

The list of missteps could be extended significantly, for example with Feldmann’s contribution to the departure of the important IAA motor show from Frankfurt or a requested photo with the mayor of Kiev, Vitaly Klitschko, to whom he offered a partnership between Frankfurt and Kyiv against a parliamentary decision to the contrary. Feldmann increasingly gave the impression of being out of control.

In the meantime, Frankfurt has mobilized to drive Feldmann out of office. There is a cross-party action alliance between the Roman coalition and the CDU, as well as several initiatives, some of which are private. But getting rid of a mayor is difficult in Hesse. According to the Hessian Municipal Code, there are two high hurdles for voting out.

On the one hand, two-thirds of the municipal assembly must vote to vote out the mayor. This hurdle has already been cleared. On the other hand, the vote must also be voted out by the citizens. This vote will take place on Sunday. However, the referendum not only requires the majority of valid votes, but this majority must be at least 30 percent of those entitled to vote. In local elections, however, there is often a certain electoral fatigue; just 30.2 percent of voters took part in the last mayoral runoff.

In this respect, it is far from certain that Feldmann will be voted out by the citizens, even if a clear majority were against him. A success in the referendum would be another triumph for Feldmann after his brilliant election victory in 2018. He could (and probably would) remain in his post until the regular end of his term.

SYou can the Frankfurt business editor Michael Rasch on the platforms Twitter, linkedin and Xing follow.