Frankfurt's Lord Mayor Peter Feldmann (SPD) wants to remain in office until the regular end of his electoral term in 2024 in the event that the citizens do not vote in sufficient numbers for his deselection on November 6th.

He announced this on Monday evening.

Feldmann is thus moving away from a procedure that he had proposed himself in the summer and which was previously published on the city's website on the Internet, saying that he would not revoke this declaration.

Manfred Koehler

Head of department of the Rhein-Main editorial team of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

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Feldmann announced in July that he wanted to resign from office at the end of January 2023;

He wanted to deposit the corresponding letters with the notary.

At the time, he had mentioned two different ways out of office, which the Hessian municipal code allows, but after a few days let it be known that he would only take one of them, deselection by the city council, which he would then comply with on January 31st.

Even after the city councilors took the path of deselection earlier, which will now lead to the referendum on November 6th, the homepage continued to read, "In July 2022 Mayor Feldmann decided and publicly announced that he would resign from office in the coming year.

From mid-January onwards, he will allow himself to be deselected in accordance with Section 76 (4) of the Hessian Municipal Code and will accept this deselection by January 31, 2023.

He will not revoke this declaration.”

But that is exactly what Feldmann did on Monday evening.

This passage has disappeared from the corresponding site on the Internet, instead he again proposes a “fairness pact” for the upcoming election campaign, but also writes with reference to the vote on November 6th, “the citizens of the city should Frankfurt are in favor of the Lord Mayor remaining in office, the Lord Mayor will fulfill his duties until the end of his term of office and will continue to work for a social Frankfurt.

Another procedure could not be justified from such a direct-democratic result.” The question of whether the city councilors would initiate a procedure for voting out again in January if Feldmann was not voted out on November 6th, then in agreement with Feldmann,

had remained open to the last;

it would still have to be examined legally.