The 30-year-old political and administrative scientist Jan Rothenbacher has recaptured the town hall in Memmingen for the SPD. Rothenbacher received 55.4 percent of the votes in the mayoral election on Sunday.
The previous head of town hall, Manfred Schilder from the CSU, came to 38.3 percent according to the preliminary final result. Behind them were Nur Sensoy (Team Todenhöfer) with 3.3 percent and the candidate from the Ecological Democratic Party (ÖDP), Krimhilde Dornach, with 3.0 percent. According to the city, the turnout was 46.6 percent and was not particularly high for a mayoral election. There were around 32,500 eligible voters.
The approximately 44,000-strong urban district in western Bavaria used to have social-democratic town hall bosses for a very long time. For 36 years it was ruled by the SPD man Ivo Holzinger, who was Germany’s longest-serving mayor when he left in autumn 2016. Holzinger’s party friend Markus Kennerknecht was then able to prevail in the election of his successor. The 46-year-old social democrat collapsed after only 38 days in office while jogging and died.
In the unscheduled new elections in March 2017, CSU candidate Schilder was chosen by a narrow margin to be the head of the town hall.