Former Science Minister Bernd Sibler (CSU) will become the new District Administrator in Deggendorf, Lower Bavaria. In the election on Sunday, Sibler prevailed against his competitors in the first ballot, receiving almost 53 percent of the votes. According to the preliminary result from the evening, Stefan Achatz (FW), Mayor of the municipality of Bernried, who was given the best chance of forcing the prominent CSU politician into a runoff election. Achatz received more than 26 percent. Katrin Ebner-Steiner (AfD) came to 6.4, Thomas Müller (SPD) to 6.6 and Maren Lex (Greens) to around eight percent.
The extraordinary election had become necessary because the previous District Administrator Christian Bernreiter (CSU) moved to Markus Söder’s cabinet as the new Minister for Construction and Transport in February. Bernreiter was elected district administrator in the 2020 local elections with almost 69.5 percent, at that time there was only one opposing candidate from the free voters. Sibler, until then Minister, lost his post at the same time in this major cabinet reshuffle. This national political component was discussed many times during the election campaign and put forward in a negative interpretation. Stefan Achatz spoke of “Posten-Geschacher”. Sibler protested against such accusations that it was not about an agreement from Munich, but about a democratic decision by the citizens. He “burns for the people”, has worked with passion at the state level and wants to continue this as district administrator.
Central topics of the election campaign were the Deggendorf Clinic; also, for example, local public transport as well as good infrastructure and attractive living conditions, so that younger people stay at home and do not move to Regensburg or Munich. The AfD could not get caught up with the topic of migration, and also brought it up unusually sparingly. During the refugee crisis, Ebner-Steiner was able to achieve surprising success in Deggendorf in the 2017 federal election campaign. Your result now should be considered disappointing for the AfD, there were higher expectations. About 96,000 eligible voters in the Deggendorf district were called on Sunday.