Local elections in Bavaria: The left are present like never before - Munich is threatened with runoff

Local elections are held in Bavaria in less than two weeks. Particularly interesting: There are more left-wing applicants than ever before.

• The Bavarian local elections on March 15 are imminent.
• Particularly striking: The Left Party is more present than ever at this year's election in Bavaria.
• You can read all the latest developments in Bavarian local elections in this news ticker .

Munich - Local elections will take place in Bavaria on March 15. Then, in most of the cities, municipalities and districts of the Free State, district councilors, mayors and municipal or city ​​councils are elected for the next six years.

Local elections in Bavaria: The runoff election will take place on March 29

Due to the large number of mayor candidates, it is rather unlikely that a candidate will get the required absolute majority in the first round of the election. Therefore , a runoff election is planned for two weeks later, on March 29th . A total of around 39,500 mandate holders are appointed in Bavaria. And although the corona virus is also the number one topic in the Free State and therefore a number of major events have been canceled, the municipal elections are to be held as planned according to the current status. Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter nevertheless called a crisis team for extraordinary events due to the new lung disease. The city of Munich also informed about this on Twitter.

#Coronavirus OB Reiter has convened a staff for extraordinary events: "I want to make sure that we are well prepared in # Munich and that we can also keep the citizens informed about the current situation."

And regardless of the corona virus, local elections in the Bavarian capital are eagerly awaited. Acting Mayor Dieter Reiter * is ahead according to a survey from last week, but he will probably have to be in the runoff. 39 percent of those surveyed would currently vote for the SPD candidate, according to the survey published last Thursday by the Hamburg institute GMS (on behalf of 17:30 Sat.1 Bayern. This means that riders are still missing by more than 11 percent to go directly to the first ballot to be confirmed in office.

Polls local elections in Bavaria: Dieter Reiter (SPD) leads the Munich OB election

Greens candidate Katrin Habenschaden * had 23 percent of the vote, Kristina Frank of the CSU * 16 percent . And a lot is still open, because more than a fifth of the potential voters ( 22 percent ) stated that they had not yet made a decision not to vote for any of the candidates or not at all.

The Left Party is also interesting in the Bavarian local elections. Because in this year's election , more left-wing politicians are applying for mandates than ever before . Representatives could be elected in a total of 24 out of 25 independent cities and 52 out of 71 counties, the regional association said at the request of the German Press Agency.

Local elections in Bavaria: Around 1800 people stand for the left

In addition, the left can be elected in 52 district towns and municipalities and ten district committees. And it also competes in six cities and six counties in alliance with other parties. A total of around 1,800 people would appear on left-wing election lists . The average age is 44 years .

“For the first time ever, a party to the left of the SPD will anchor itself in large parts of the country in 2020. Even with a pessimistic count, we can expect a four-fold increase in the number of left-wing mandate holders . It is a huge success, ”said Head of State Eva Bulling-Schröter . Co-head of state Ates Gürpinar spoke about the political priorities of the party: The left would advocate stopping the division in Germany and tackling a socio-ecological restructuring.

You can read more about the local elections in Bavaria *, for example who is entitled to vote and how to fill out the ballot papers correctly, in our overview article.

dpa, cia

* Merkur.de and tz.de are part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital editors network.