The CSU politician Eva Treu is the new district administrator in Neu-Ulm. In the runoff election on Sunday, the 30-year-old received 67.1 percent of the votes, as the district office announced. The voter turnout was 28.2 percent. The administration of the Bavarian district on the border with Baden-Württemberg will be led by a woman for the first time. Until now, the position had only been occupied by men, explained a spokeswoman for the district office.
In the second round of voting, Treu ran against 56-year-old Joachim Eisenkolb from the Free Voters. Eisenkolb received 32.9 percent of the votes and has been the first mayor of the Elchingen district municipality since 2008. In the first round of voting two weeks ago, the candidates from the SPD, AfD and Greens were eliminated.
The new district administrator has been active in local politics in Neu-Ulm since 2020. Since then, Treu has sat for the Junge Union on the district council and also on the Neu-Ulm city council. The 30-year-old comes from a farm, has a small son and is a qualified industrial engineer. Previously she was a research assistant at the Biberach University in Baden-Württemberg. In the first round of voting, she received 41.1 percent, more than twice as many votes as Eisenkolb.
The early election was necessary because the previous district administrator Thorsten Freudenberger (CSU) was elected to the Bavarian state parliament in October. The Neu-Ulm district has around 181,000 citizens and is one of the largest districts in the Free State in terms of population. More than 136,000 residents were eligible to vote in the election.