It is just after eight on this Sunday evening when Mayor Dieter Reiter steps in front of the journalists. He is outdoors at Harras. It is dark, only the many cameras illuminate the SPD politician – it will be the picture that remains of this local election. In order not to further heat up the spread of the corona virus, the Social Democrats, like many other parties, have decided not to hold an election party and also to hold a press conference inside. “I am pleased with a good election result,” says the man who has ruled Munich since 2014 and has again collected the most votes by a clear margin in this election. The SPD is not doing as well as its top candidate. After counting 1150 of the 1274 electoral areas, the Social Democrats are only in third place with 22.3 percent behind the Greens (28.8 percent), which have increased by 12.2 percentage points compared to 2014, and the CSU (26.4 percent) .
But Mayor Reiter doesn’t know that at the time of the press conference. He doesn’t really feel like celebrating anyway: Because he has to vote in the run-off, even though he alone has more votes than his two toughest competitors Kristina Frank (CSU) and Katrin Habenschaden (Greens) put together. Reiter counted 47.9 percent after counting 1272 out of 1274 electoral areas. 259,334 Munich residents gave him his vote, Frank got 115,563 (21.3 percent) and damage to property came just behind with 111,861 votes (20.7 percent). After 2014, Reiter had to run for the second time. This only happened once more in the history of Munich’s mayors: in 1984 challenger Georg Kronawitter (SPD) forced incumbent Erich Kiesl (CSU) into extra time.
If it were to remain with the previous result, Reiter would have significantly increased its 2014 result by 7.5 percentage points. Bad damage would have been 6.0 percentage points more than Sabine Nallinger, who competed for the Greens six years ago. In terms of percentage, the CSU would be a big loser: Candidate Frank would have 15.4 percentage points less than predecessor Josef Schmid, who is now in the state parliament for the CSU.
Of course, he would rather have made it in the first ballot, admits Reiter. Especially since exhausting weeks are ahead of him: The campaign has to go on somehow, as OB he has to take care of the corona crisis management. He sees that he is likely to run against Frank in the runoff election: The differences between him and Kristina Frank are probably the clearer, especially in traffic and housing policy.
Munich SPD leader Claudia Tausend would have preferred not to run for a runoff, as she explains. “We have to think about how an election campaign can be conducted under such circumstances. There will be no purely digital election campaign.” Not everyone is on Twitter and Facebook, “she says. SPD parliamentary group leader Christian Müller can gain something good from the whole: “The OB election will be the only entertaining thing in the next few weeks.”
Meanwhile, CSU politician Frank is waiting in the close circle of her campaign team in the mayor’s office of her colleague Manuel Pretzl in the town hall. For a long time it looked like it would end up behind property damage, but in the end the matter turned. She is visibly relieved: “A game has two halves, you know that as a fan of FC Bayern.” It was an exciting election evening in turbulent times: “In the event that I enter the runoff, I personally will make a responsible offer for a solid policy in the middle of Munich in difficult times,” she says.
Katrin Habenschaden resigned to her defeat. “Congratulations to Dieter Reiter and Kristina Frank,” she says. For the first time there was a head-to-head race in Munich with green participation. “Of course it is a shame to have narrowly missed the runoff election, but we have clearly gained compared to the last election,” explains Habenschaden. fd
The spread of the corona virus has had a major impact on local elections, not only because the parties have canceled their election parties or politicians have held open-air press conferences. The city had to compensate for the loss of many election workers and Forcibly moved teachers from their own schools to count on Saturday. Polling stations that were originally housed in old people’s homes were moved. District administration officer Thomas Böhle promised more distance and disinfectant. But it did not work everywhere, as election workers and voters report.
While the OB candidates will soon know their result, the future city councilors will have to fear even longer. Only the unchanged ballot papers will be checked on Sunday, which, according to the district administration, is about 65 percent of the votes actually cast. According to this, the Greens became the strongest faction for the first time and were given 23 seats. The CSU would have 21 seats, the SPD should have 18 councilors. A total of twelve lists would move in: in addition to the big three, it would be AfD (4), FDP (3), ÖDP (3), Linke (2) and the Pink List (1) as well as new Munich List, Volt and The Party (1). The Bavarian Party and the right-wing extremist citizens’ initiative Foreign Stop (BIA) would no longer be included. The city expects an end result by Monday evening. A negative trend has been stopped.
Voter turnout, which has been falling steadily since the 1990s, has risen again for the first time: six years ago, just 42.0 percent of those entitled to vote cast their vote. This was just over half of the Munich voters at the polls (50.9 percent). Significantly more people voted by postal vote than in 2014, which was probably due to the Corona crisis. comment
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