Düsseldorf (dpa) – CDU and SPD have recorded both wins and defeats in the mayor’s runoff elections in North Rhine-Westphalia – the big winners are once again the Greens. For the first time they conquered the top positions in the town halls of Bonn, Aachen and Wuppertal. In Cologne, the non-party politician Henriette Reker, supported by the Greens and the CDU, asserted herself.
The Greens described the result of the elections on Sunday as “historic” https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/. “Now the Greens are leading at least 13 cities and municipalities,” commented state chairmen Mona Neubaur and Felix Banaszak. The national chairwoman Annalena Baerbock tweeted: “What great results from NRW!”
While the SPD was defending its heart chamber in Dortmund, the CDU took back the town hall in Düsseldorf and is now for the first time again providing the mayor of the state capital of a large German state. The previous city director of Cologne, Stephan Keller, will be the new mayor of Düsseldorf. He won the runoff election against incumbent Thomas Geisel from the SPD. Geisel admitted his defeat and congratulated his challenger.
Six years after the takeover by the SPD, the mayor’s office in the North Rhine-Westphalian state capital is back in CDU hands. North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister Armin Laschet (CDU) said the Düsseldorf and Stephan Keller had saved the “honor of the CDU”: “We can also win in big cities.” CDU candidates also won in Münster, Oberhausen and Mülheim an der Ruhr.
While the SPD lost its top position to the CDU in Düsseldorf, but also in Mülheim an der Ruhr and Wuppertal, it was able to record successes elsewhere. In Hamm, the SPD politician Marc Herter (46) replaced the long-time CDU Lord Mayor Thomas Hunsteger-Petermann (CDU). In the city currently particularly affected by the coronavirus, the 67-year-old incumbent only got 36.4 percent of the vote.
The SPD also had a surprise success in the former CDU stronghold of Mönchengladbach on the Lower Rhine: Felix Heinrichs, who was only 31 years old, won 74 percent against his CDU competitor Frank Boss. In Krefeld and Bielefeld, the SPD defended the top office in the town hall. The most important thing for the Social Democrats, however, was the defense of the largest city in the Ruhr area, Dortmund: Thomas Westphal won the emblematic duel for the top position against his CDU opponent Andreas Hollstein, previously mayor of Altena, with 52 percent of the votes. The SPD has appointed the mayor of Dortmund without interruption since 1946. SPD state chief Sebastian Hartmann said the results were “mixed up” overall.
The Greens had the most reason to celebrate. In Bonn, for example, Katja Dörner, a green member of the Bundestag, surprisingly won 56.3 percent against the previous incumbent Ashok-Alexander Sridharan (CDU), who won 43.7 percent. In Aachen – the hometown of NRW Prime Minister Armin Laschet (CDU) – the candidate of the Greens, Sibylle Keupen, left her CDU competitor Harald Baal far behind with 67.4 percent of the votes.
The fate of the industrial city of Wuppertal will in future be controlled by a green economics professor. Uwe Schneidewind (54), long-time head of the renowned Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Energy and Environment, won an exciting head-to-head race against incumbent Andreas Mucke (SPD).
There were runoff elections for the top two on Sunday in North Rhine-Westphalia where in the first round on September 13th none of the candidates got more than half of the votes. In the most populous federal state, the CDU had clearly won the first ballot two weeks ago. Despite heavy losses, the SPD remained the second strongest force. The Greens recorded their best result in a NRW local election in the first round.
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