This was not a vote on Peter Feldmann's politics.

The social-democratic mayor of the city of Frankfurt has to go because he failed because of the way he led his office and life.

It's amazing that there were people in the city to the very end who believed it was a class struggle between big business and the mayor of the little people.

On the contrary: Precisely because Feldmann behaved in a way that had to be described too often in the past few weeks, politics was no longer an issue for this group when he was voted out.

And it's not just there: Feldmann arrested politicians in the city for months.

He likes to talk about the "social city" and tells fairy tales about imaginary opponents on the way there.

In fact, he

if he has worked at all in the past few months, he is only concerned with his own affairs.

He was fully occupied with his divorce war, his criminal proceedings, with life in a surreal world he had designed himself.

The referendum to vote out was a demonstration of what democratic processes can still achieve in a municipality today.

A few months ago, no one would have expected that enough voters would vote to reach the quorum of 30 percent of all those eligible to vote against.

The fact that it worked out is a compliment for the city councilors in Römer, who took the risk of voting because Feldmann forced them to do so through his tactics.

The election campaign of the deselection alliance was restrained enough and yet it worked: Now the quorum has even been exceeded by almost 50,000 votes.

On the other hand, a limit has been reached that must not be overlooked.

Even months of scandals and transgressions that Feldmann piled up, including a public mud fight with his separated wife, were unable to motivate more than 40 percent of those eligible to vote to vote.

Are the other almost 60 percent no longer available?

After all, it was about “their” city and its representatives, and also about dignity.

In other countries, people are taking to the streets for such a right to vote.

Demands on successors must be high

Maybe (not only) in Hesse we have to think about whether it was a good idea to have introduced the direct election of a mayor who does not have nearly as much say in immediate city politics as the complex election process suggests.

It may be that the citizens have a good sense that the participation in the elections can also be explained by this.

Therefore, the demands on Feldmann's possible successors must be particularly high: Because the municipal statutes only provide manageable powers, they must - unlike their failed predecessors - manage to convince people with their personality and their ideas in the long term.

They have to moderate, mediate, seek and find compromises in city politics, which then lead to majorities in the Romans, which move Frankfurt forward.

This also applies to social Frankfurt, which functions well when the city as a whole is doing well: when its residents feel safe again in the station district, when companies like to stay and come here, because people move and stay, because life is in relation to remains affordable and worth living in with their hopefully increasing income.

Because there are good schools, a modern (digital) infrastructure and a traffic concept that is not life-threatening for cyclists and works for cars and delivery traffic.

Because it is better to work together with the region.

Because Frankfurt is a commuter city that cannot do politics for commuters alone, a city that also gets the region involved when things are going well here.

That is why you have to convey a give and take in all relationships, which works better with a mayor of integrity who understands something about business than with someone who, when it comes to “social”, only thought of redistribution, but never of making money.

Bridges can only be built if everyone at both ends of these bridges benefits.

Feldman never understood that.

The criminal case against him for taking advantage in office continues.

No matter how the court decides: finally the Lord Mayor is no longer sitting there, but only the Frankfurt Feldmann.

It's a shame that he didn't realize earlier that it's better that way.

It would also have saved 1.6 million euros for social purposes.

That's how much money this deselection process cost.