A runoff is a bit like a penalty shootout in soccer. The previous 90 minutes plus overtime no longer count, not even favorites or extra chances; instead, both sides suddenly have equally good prospects of victory. On Monday, Karl-Heinz Eppinger put the probability that he entered the decisive race for mayor’s office the day before at “fifty-fifty”. You always hear a lot beforehand when talking to citizens. But where they ultimately ticked the box, “you don’t know.”
But Eppinger has known since Sunday evening: The cross was set a few more times for him. He becomes the new town hall chief of the city of Zwiesel. With 53.97 percent of the votes, the SPD candidate prevailed over artist Gloria Gray, who received 46.03 percent. So the runoff was close to the expected 50-50 decision, which is why Eppinger doesn’t even try to hide his relief on the phone. The past few months have been “intense,” he says. He is all the more pleased that so many people have supported him.
In fact, it was not agreed that Eppinger would become mayor; that the 50-year-old business economist, employed by the AOK, would win against the well-known entertainer, whose application even aroused the curiosity of the press in Hamburg and Berlin. Gloria Gehring, as Gray is actually called, was born 56 years ago in Zwiesel as a boy. She later fled the pressures of the small town to Munich and made a career for herself on stage and television. But Gray has long been back in the Bavarian Forest, and she has even been a member of the district council since 2020. In the mayoral election at the end of November, she got the best result in the first round with a good 32 percent, as a non-party. Gray did not use posters as a classic local election tool. She wanted to spread a spirit of optimism, she once said in an interview, and invigorate the city.
Eppinger might have benefited from the fact that he was already a little known in Zwiesel. He served on the city council from 2003 to 2014. As a former squad cross-country skier, he has also been an official in the German and international ski association for a good 20 years, organizing regional competitions and world cups according to his own statements. What can you learn in top-class sport for the mayor’s office? “Perseverance and determination,” says Eppinger.
You can use both in Zwiesel and its scandal-ridden town hall perhaps more than anywhere else. The business is currently run by the second mayor and the third mayor; the actual boss Franz-Xaver Steininger was temporarily suspended from work in 2021 due to charges of accepting benefits. That’s why Eppinger wants to “stabilize” the administration when he starts as the new mayor in February – and create more living space, clarify the question marks about the new sewage treatment plant, revitalize the city center. He also has one or two additional events in mind, he says, a “beer festival” or a festival together with the clubs. Support from the publicly experienced competitor would certainly be practical for this. “I spoke to her on Sunday night and said I’ll get in touch.”
And Gray? She reacted calmly to the defeat on Sunday evening. “I would have liked to win,” she said Passau New Press. “But it is what it is.” For them, what they have achieved is still a huge success. She had made a similar statement two weeks earlier in the SZ, after the first round of the election: just the fact that nobody was upset that a transgender woman had achieved the best result is reason to celebrate. On Monday she cannot be reached by phone at first, but a new picture appears on her Facebook page, with a colorful strand of rainbow colors covering her head. “Thank you,” writes Gray – provided, among other things, with a heart.