Uwe Becker against Mike Josef in the runoff


Whe will be mayor of Frankfurt will be decided on March 26 in the runoff between Uwe Becker (CDU) and Mike Josef (SPD). According to the trend, they got the most votes of the 20 candidates on Sunday, none of which achieved an absolute majority. Becker, Hessian State Secretary for Federal and European Affairs, was 34.5 percent after counting all 575 constituencies. This put the 53-year-old former city treasurer clearly at the top of all applicants. The 40-year-old social democrat Josef, who is a member of the magistrate’s planning department, received 24.0 percent of the votes at that time. After Josef initially showed a clear gap to Manuela Rottmann, the Green candidate caught up in the course of the evening. However, she did not make it into the runoff with 21.3 percent at that time. The “Bahnbabo”, whose real name is Peter Wirth, achieved a surprise success. The tram driver came fourth with 5.1 percent and surpassed both left-wing candidate Daniela Mehler-Würzbach (3.6 percent) and Yanki Pürsün from the FDP, who had to be satisfied with 2.8 percent and seventh place . Just ahead of him was Maja Wolff with 2.9 percent.

“The people of Frankfurt want a new start and want the standstill to come to an end,” said Becker. He is motivated for the next three weeks until the runoff. Citizens have watched long enough as the city gambles away its potential. He brings experience and knows and loves his city. For the Hessian Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU), who ran eleven years ago as a candidate for mayor, the result shows: “The CDU can do big cities.” Regarding the performance of Manuela Rottmann, he said that the Greens had apparently underestimated how important it was to be rooted in of the city.


508,510 Frankfurters were eligible to vote on Sunday. According to the provisional result, voter turnout was 40.4 percent. In 2018, turnout in the first ballot was 37.6 percent. Almost 100,000 and thus almost 20 percent had applied for postal voting documents in advance. Most recently, the proportion of postal voters had risen significantly. The election became necessary because the previous incumbent, Peter Feldmann, was voted out with 95 percent of the votes at the beginning of November. Feldmann, who has since left the SPD, was on trial at the time in connection with the workers’ welfare affair for accepting advantages and was sentenced to a fine in the first instance shortly before Christmas. Missteps related to Eintracht’s Europa League success had also cost him sympathy, such as his sexist statements on the flight to the final in Seville and the pictures of the “cup theft” in the Römer at the victory celebration.

The next regular mayoral election in Frankfurt would not have been in the calendar until 2024 and had to be brought forward because of the deselection. The election campaign was therefore short. In the final phase, traffic had become a contentious issue. CDU candidate Becker positioned himself against stricter restrictions for motorists in favor of wider cycle paths and fewer parking spaces on the side of the road. But the conditions in Frankfurt’s Bahnhofsviertel also determined the debates. All three candidates from the Greens, CDU and SPD have committed themselves to the goal of climate neutrality.

The election is also about whether the Roman coalition will have to deal with a mayor who does not belong to any of their parties. After the 2021 local elections, the Greens, who became the strongest faction, formed an alliance with the SPD, FDP and Volt. CDU candidate Becker announced that if he were successful, he would seek talks with the coalition. But he also knows the “instrument box” that the Hessian municipal code makes available to a directly elected mayor. In addition to the possibility of making your own applications in the city parliament, this is above all the right to allocate departments.



Source link -68