Now it’s official: Peter Feldmann has let the deadline pass – now the citizens have to decide on his deselection.
Frankfurt/Main (dpa/lhe) – Frankfurt’s Lord Mayor Peter Feldmann (SPD) did not accept the deselection by the city councillors. The deadline for this had passed on Friday night. “There was no message from the mayor to the head of the city council,” said the head of the office of the city council, Brigitte Palmowsky, on Friday morning of the German Press Agency.
Therefore, the citizens of Frankfurt must now decide on the future of the mayor. The referendum is scheduled to take place on November 6th. Feldmann is on trial in October on suspicion of taking advantage. Almost all parties in Römer are calling for his resignation, including the SPD.
Feldmann had offered to accept a vote at the end of January 2023. The city councilors did not want to wait that long and initiated a voting procedure last Thursday. Feldmann then had a week to accept the vote. The deadline passed at midnight unused.
After the votes were counted a week ago, Feldmann had already announced that he would not accept the deselection: “Deselection is not only expensive but also unnecessary,” it said in a written statement. He offered his resignation for the end of January, but the coalition decided “to take the path of confrontation”. “They accept months of paralysis in local politics for a few weeks shorter term of office – not to mention the risk that the end result will not be the result they want, not to mention the risk.”
In the referendum, 30 percent of those eligible to vote must decide against Feldmann. In view of the low voter turnout for municipal decisions, the deselection could fail because of this requirement. In the runoff election and Feldmann’s re-election in 2018, only 30.2 percent of those eligible to vote cast their votes. The FDP and AfD in the Hessian state parliament have proposed lowering the hurdle and introducing a tiered quorum.
