A particularly colorful variety of election posters is currently hanging in Lower Saxony.

Because before the federal election on September 26th, the parliaments will be re-elected there on September 12th, i.e. district councils, city councils, local councils, city district councils.

In addition, the direct elections of many mayors take place, and the majority of the district administrators are elected.

If runoff elections are necessary for this, these will take place two weeks later together with the federal election.

Reinhard Bingener

Political correspondent for Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Bremen based in Hanover.

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In view of the political trends at the federal level, the Lower Saxony SPD of Prime Minister Stephan Weil is currently even hoping to replace the CDU as the strongest force at the local level for the first time in more than forty years.

However, the social democrats have to master a personnel change in the big cities: With Braunschweig, Göttingen and Wolfsburg there are three big cities in which the previous SPD incumbents no longer run for elections.

The same applies to the cities of Delmenhorst and Lüneburg.

The surrounding area is more conservative

The Social Democrats also go to great lengths to defend the influential office of President of the Hanover Region.

The unit, which was only formed in 2001, comprises the district and city of Hanover and has a population of more than 1.1 million.

Incumbent Hauke ​​Jagau has led the region since 2006.

The SPD offers Steffen Krach, previously State Secretary for Science in the Berlin Senate, to succeed him.

The Hanover-born is given good chances, also due to a successful election campaign.

In the presumably necessary runoff election, he could meet the CDU candidate Christine Karasch, who has previously been the head of the environment in the Hanover region.

Since the surrounding area is more conservative than the city, the CDU continues to have a structural majority at the regional level.

The state capital itself has been ruled by a green mayor since 2019.

The success of Belit Onay in the “red Hanover” was a shock for the SPD, which now wants to at least defend its supremacy in the city council.

The chances are not bad, because the initial euphoria surrounding the green OB has evaporated.

Onay, who is inexperienced in administration, lacks skill in enforcing the promised traffic turnaround, and a few months ago the city council crashed Onay's candidate for the economic department.

The Greens then terminated the traffic light alliance with the SPD and FDP.

Cooperation after the election is still possible.

However, the Greens would probably have to pay a high price for this - or Onay would see himself largely blocked in an alliance without Green participation.

One of the interior minister's closest collaborators

In the next largest city, Braunschweig, Ulrich Markurth is no longer an option.

The SPD set up the young lawyer Thorsten Kornblum, who for many years was one of the closest collaborators of Lower Saxony's Interior Minister Boris Pistorius.

Observers see good chances for Kornblum, who in a runoff election would probably have to deal either with the architecture professor Tatjana Schneider, who is supported by the Greens, or the farmer Kaspar Haller, who is also non-party and is supported by the CDU and FDP.