Frankfurt Mayoral Election

[minionofmidas]

The election is on Jan. 28th. A runoff, should one be needed, would be on Feb. 11th.
There is no reason why the election is in january really, the term isn't actually over until july (although, should the incumbent lose and then resign, the mayor-elect could take office immediately. The term would then be over 6 years after the actual date of taking office.) The last election was in april 01, although that made sense as it was on the same day as the council elections.

Every Frankfurt resident who is over 18 years of age on election day and is a citizen of at least one EU member state is entitled vote.
Every German citizen, regardless of residence, who is over 25 and not yet 68 on election day was entitled to stand (no, unlike in Saxony-Anhalt, mayors don't have to resign once they hit the age limit) - they would have to move to Frankfurt for the duration of their term in office, though.

There were two ways to get on the ballot - you could either be nominated by any party that won a seat in the council last time around (only 6 out of 11 are fielding a candidate though), or by the signatures of at least 186 (1 out of every 2000) eligible voters. Four additional candidates got on the ballot this way.

Since last year's council election, the days of the extra-unwieldy CDU-SPD-Greens-FDP coalition-that-basically-wasn't-a-coalition-since-they-hardly-ever-could-all-agree-on-anything-,-and-thence-usually-voted-as-they-pleased are over and it has been replaced by a CDU-Green coalition (oh well, the writing was on the wall during the campaign if you happened to watch it closely, hence why the majority of my own votes went to the Left rather than the Greens)

Popular two-term mayor Petra Roth, CDU,  is running for a third and (on account of that age limit) last term. She's also supported by the FDP (which is supporting the CDU-Green coalition from the semi-outside), while the Greens aren't officially endorsing anybody. (They tried drafting Dany Cohn-Bendit, but he turned them down. Red Dany views himself as strictly a European politician now, not a local one...) She'll win, the question is just whether she can be at least forced into a runoff. She was 6 years ago, which actually was something of a surprise but turned the election into a real race all of a sudden. (First round was something like Roth 48, Vandreike (SPD) 31. Second round was 52.5-47.5 or thereabouts, despite Vandreike not getting the Green endorsement.)

The SPD candidate, Franz Frey  is an idiot. Even worse than Vandreike was supposed to be. I´'m not actually sure whether I'd support him in case he makes it into a runoff.
For some reason, he got the endorsement of the anti-airport extension list, FAG (no joke).

Apart from that,
the Left has put up Ulrich (or Uli) Wilken, a guy who's spent much of his work life in third world "development" jobs. Interesting side note: he was a member of this set throughout their existence (sorry, no english version). He joined the PDS in 2000.
The BFF put up their frontman, Wolfgang Hübner.
REPs and NPD have each put up some candidate.
I haven't a clue why Ökolinx haven't put up anybody - they did have a candidate of sorts last time around - while EL defacto do have a candidate, he just chose to file as an independent. His name's Salvatore Ribaudo.
Former FAG councillor Horst Schäfer, who's sort of fallen out with them and didn't run for reelection, is running as an independent candidate. He seems to have no budget though - I haven't seen any poster or anything - which is a shame since he could have lured some green voters to the polls.
There are two more indy candidates noone seems to know anything about (well, they did gather 186 signatures), a Turkish-born thirtyish man named Kadim Sanli and an Italian-born thirtyish man named Pasquale Aita. Here's Aita's wacky website. The opening text is apparently the same one he used in last year's mayoral election in Rüsselsheim, where he won 142 votes (0.9%). All I can seem to find on Sanli is that he was a member of the SPD at one point...

There are two further candidates who filed but failed to get the required signatures and/or handed them in too late. Last thing I read was both are appealing the decision not to let them stand, but the appeal hearing was two days ago, and I can't find any confirmation that they're really not on the ballot.
The one is someone named Michael Arnot, and the other is Jean-Jules Tatchouop, whom I actually know personally. (He's the one who got the signatures - including mine - but handed them in late.) Jean-Jules's a native of Cameroon who used to run a chicken stall, later turned it into a sort of esoterical life counselling stall but it's not in existence anymore now. He's pretty wacky of course, but in a good way. I probably would have voted for him actually - only reason I'm bothering to vote, after all, is because a runoff means another day spent sitting next to a pretty girl at a polling station and getting paid - if badly - for my troubles.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

How likely is a runoff?

The SPD candidate, Franz Frey  is an idiot. Even worse than Vandreike was supposed to be. I´'m not actually sure whether I'd support him in case he makes it into a runoff.

As the idiocy of local politicians can be quite funny sometimes... any details on his idiocy?

[minionofmidas]

How likely is a runoff?

Hard to say since noone's bothered polling AFAIK. Last time round there were two polls, done by Allensbach IIRC, both commissioned by the conservative FAZ newspaper. The first got Roth getting 59%, the second was actually pretty close at 49% (though Vandreike's support was understated and Green and fringe candidates were foretold to do better than they did, again IIRC.)

And of course because noone's able to predict the behavior of core Green voters without a Green candidate...

The SPD candidate, Franz Frey  is an idiot. Even worse than Vandreike was supposed to be. I´'m not actually sure whether I'd support him in case he makes it into a runoff.

As the idiocy of local politicians can be quite funny sometimes... any details on his idiocy?
[/quote]Not that type of idiocy.
But he did a pretty horrible job as Sozialdezernent ("Commissioner of Social Affairs"?) by all accounts - accounts of city employees, that is. My mom wished to have Vandreike back, and she didn't even like Vandreike.
He also bears part of the blame for the state of SPD-Green relations on the council. (Although there's worse offenders, in his own party... and quite equally bad ones in the Greens, I suppose...)
Funny side note is that the SPD officially nominated him as mayoral candidate during the council elections campaign, in the hope of a boost in support... seeing how that turned out, there were actually calls for him to stand down right after the election. (Especially as there were some other people who might want to run instead. )

[minionofmidas]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=34922.60 for a flashback to the council election.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Not that type of idiocy.

Oh
I was hoping he might be a sort of Frankfurt version of Russell Goodway.

[minionofmidas]

I was hoping he might be a sort of Frankfurt version of Russell Goodway.

Who be Russell Goodway?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I was hoping he might be a sort of Frankfurt version of Russell Goodway.

Who be Russell Goodway?

Former Labour leader of Cardiff council and a greedy/paranoid idiot who (when as leader of the council and Lord Mayor) gave himself a huge pay rise, endulged in various vanity/legacy projects, was more interested in seeing his name in the headlines than actually doing his job and claimed that everyone was plotting against him.

[minionofmidas]

Former Labour leader of Cardiff council and a greedy/paranoid idiot who (when as leader of the council and Lord Mayor) gave himself a huge pay rise

Our politicians tend to do that collectively, not individually.

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Ah, but he's not in power yet. (And probably never will be)

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We have lots of people good at that... such as our current mayor... and claimed that everyone was plotting against him.
[/quote]That sounds like Roth's two SPD predecessors (Volker Hauff, elected 1989. resigned, 1991. Andreas von Schoeler, elected 1991. resigned, stood for reelection, and lost, 1995.) and their relationship to their own party. Trouble is, they were both right...

[minionofmidas]

Actually... there was a poll in early december. I just missed it at the time.

It said that 27% could not name a single candidate... although 93% knew the name of the mayor (so 20% knew who she is but didn't know she was running for reelection, I suppose). Just 33% could name the SPD candidate.
Of the minority (but of course they didn't state how tiny) who were decided, 73% planned to vote for Roth and 25% for Frey.

There have been 16,000 requests for a postal ballot so far. This far out last mayoral election, there were 27,000. And that had under 50% turnout. (But it also had the council elections at the same time, using a new and very complicated election system. So the comparison is probably unfair.)
 

[minionofmidas]

Oh, and in Wiesbaden, where there's a mayoral election in march, the SPD somehow managed to ignore the filing deadline.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Oh, and in Wiesbaden, where there's a mayoral election in march, the SPD somehow managed to ignore the filing deadline.

I'm still curious what the Green candidate's result will be.

[ilikeverin]

Why is there a maximum age barrier?

[minionofmidas]

Why is there a maximum age barrier?

Remnant of Civil Service laws. It's a full-time paid professional position in the civil service after all.

[minionofmidas]

Oh well... in other news... Frey posed with his dog for some poster over christmas... except it turned out it wasn't even his dog after all. Looka here.
And the CDU fights for more safety on Frankfurt's sreets. That's right, sreets. Here:


And I just voted. Voted early. Voted for Horst Schäfer.
The reasons why I voted early are the following: Petra Roth's victory is assured. The only thing that's still somewhat unclear is whether there'll be a runoff. I used to care about a runoff because I wanted to get money for election volunteering twice.
But then I found out that the German Tichu Championships aren't held some sunday in March this year, but on 11th February. So I'll be in Würzburg that day, and can't possibly be an election volunteer for the runoff. So the runoff doesn't matter as much to me as it used to, and there's really no reason to vote beyond wanting to still be able to tell people that I've voted in every election.
And I got a couple things I want to do sunday beyond setting in a schoolroom in the Nordweststadt, and these things arent around where I live (and my polling station is) either. So, I might have been tempted to forego voting entirely that day. So, I voted today just to make sure that I will vote.

[minionofmidas]

And the sad little charade is over.

Turnout 33.6%

 Roth, Petra
   60,5 %   
 Frey, Franz   
   27,5 %   
 Dr. Wilken, Ulrich   
   5,9 %   
 Hübner, Wolfgang   
   2,6 %   
Schäfer, Horst
1.3%
Zutt, Doris (NPD)
0.8%
 Lämmer, Rosemarie (REP)
   0,7 %   
 Ribaudo, Salvatore   
   0,4 %   
 Sanli, Kadim      0,1 %   
 Aita, Pasquale      0,1 %   

[minionofmidas]

Franz Frey is the first Social Democrat candidate since at least 1933, though possibly the first one ever, to fail to carry the Riederwald estate! (Yeah, mixed feelings here...)

If I counted right he won only five precincts in the whole city. One in the Riederwald, one in the East End, one in Bornheim and two in the Gallus (the very two precincts where the Left managed to snitch second place in last years local elections... including one where the CDU came fourth back then. Which happens to be the precinct where my mom grew up. )

Petra Roth's vote share (by precinct) varies from 37.3% (that precinct) to 80.3% (the poshest corner of the Dornbusch). Frey's vote share goes from 49.3% (the Riederwald precinct he won) to 13.0% (out in Nieder-Erlenbach).
Wilken's strongest result, in a green stronghold precinct around Berger Straße is 16.8%.
Hübner got to 12.0% out on Sachsenhäuser Berg someplace (seems that the southern posh outskirts anti-airport vote preferred him to Schäfer.)

Schäfer - 6.6% in a North End precinct.
Zutt - 6.5% in the second Gallus precinct to vote for Frey (which is where my aunt hanged herself in 1983.)
Lämmer - 5.2% in a Goldstein precinct.
Ribaudo - 4.3% in the Postsiedlung am Biegwald
Sanli - 6.5% in a North End precinct.
Aita - 3.0% in a Schwanheim precinct (what happened here? Ten votes for the adorable little nut?)

Both Aita and Sanli polled fewer votes than they turned in signatures - slightly less than half.
I'd have to do some calculations to get at good turnout figures, so I'm leaving that for another day.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Frey was... not a good candidate then?

[minionofmidas]

That dog would have outpolled him.

[minionofmidas]

By Stadtteil, turnout varied from 52.9% in Nieder-Erlenbach to 21.7% in the Gutleut and the Bahnhofsviertel.

I could break it down slightly smaller (to postal voting precinct, since I have the list of which day voting precincts these are made up of... well, if there's been no changes since the local elections), but not (meaningfully) to the individual precinct - I'd have to know the number of people to file for a postal ballot in every precinct to do that.

By Stadtteil, Roth's vote goes from 74.9% in Nieder-Erlenbach (not just a CDU stronghold, but also where she lives. She gets personal votes there. In fact, this is no improvement on her showing there in the 2001 runoff, when she took 53% citywide.) to 44.8% in the Riederwald. The Gallus is the only other one (out of 42) where she failed to crack 50.

Frey mirrors that, with 42.1% in the Riederwald and 17.6% in Nieder-Erlenbach.

Wilken has 10.5% in the eastern North End and 3.0% out in Harheim. His vote distribution is interesting - although the vote share is closely akin to the locals and the 2005 federals, the distribution is much more like elections before that (ie, strong where the Greens are strong, especially if the area is also poorish; rather than the other way round.)

Hübner got to 6.1% in Harheim and was held to 0.9% in the Gutleut and Bahnhof.

Here's a little correlation count. Read this as "no of Stadtteile where either both figures are above average or both are below".

Roth/Hübner 25
Roth/turnout 28
Hübner/turnout 29
Frey/Wilken 29
Roth/Frey 5
Roth/Wilken 9
Hübner/Frey 17
Hübner/Wilken 15
turnout/Frey 12
turnout/Wilken 11

All of these out of 42. Hübner's result is essentially not correlated to the others'.