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Competing against each other in the runoff: Uwe Becker (CDU) and Mike Josef (SPD)
Photo: Boris Roessler / dpa
The new mayor of Frankfurt am Main will be determined in three weeks in a runoff between the CDU candidate Uwe Becker and the SPD candidate Mike Josef.
According to the city administration, Becker won the first round of the mayoral election on Sunday with 34.5 percent of the votes, clearly ahead of Josef, who achieved 24.0 percent.
Becker has been the anti-Semitism officer of the Hessian state government since 2019 and was considered one of the favorites in the election.
The Greens candidate Manuela Rottmann came in third with 21.3 percent.
Far behind in fourth place was Peter Wirth, who was able to achieve respectable success of 5.1 percent as an individual competitor.
Wirth, who works as a tram driver for the Frankfurt transport company, became known in the online networks as "Bahnbabo".
20 candidates lined up
Voter turnout was 40.4 percent.
Around 509,000 people were entitled to vote.
A total of 20 candidates applied to succeed Mayor Peter Feldmann (formerly SPD), who was voted out of office in a referendum in November – a record.
Because of the high number of candidates, a runoff was already considered likely.
The final result of the first round of voting is to be announced next Thursday.
The runoff will take place on March 26th.
In the past year, Frankfurt city politics was overshadowed by controversy over Mayor Feldmann, who was accused of accepting benefits.
The SPD politician lost his trust because of the affair about the workers' welfare (Awo) and various gaffes.
Shortly thereafter, the SPD politician was fined for accepting advantages in the Awo affair.
The verdict is not yet legally binding.
The Frankfurt SPD, headed by Mike Josef, had also distanced itself from Feldmann.
Since Feldmann's deselection, business has been managed by his deputy, Green Party politician Nargess Eskandari-Grünberg.
The usual term of office for a mayor in Frankfurt am Main is six years.
jpa/dpa