At noon, the member of parliament Martina Feldmayer still considered it necessary to address an appeal to the Green party base: "Please, please show great unity, we need that now." At the time, quite a few of the Greens feared that the Saalbau community center would had come to the general meeting in Griesheim that there could be a counter-candidate against Manuela Rottmann.

In any case, most assumed that the discussion would be intense and quite contentious.

Mechthild Harting

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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In the end, things turned out very differently: The Frankfurt Greens acted quickly and decisively on Saturday.

Manuela Rottmann, former Frankfurt Health Department head and currently Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics, was elected with 95 percent of the votes.

Only ten of the 220 party members present voted against them.

She was the only applicant.

This means that Rottmann will stand in the mayoral election on March 5, 2023 for the Greens, who received the most votes in the last local elections.

Criticism of procedure and person

Rottmann, who was greeted with much applause upon her arrival and received a standing ovation after her eight-minute speech, was surprised by this clear vote.

"Especially since," she said, "some of them have never seen me in 3D."

That will change.

From now on, they would all "see each other very, very much," she said, announcing an election campaign "that we also enjoy."

If the 50-year-old, who has a doctorate in law, has her way, the election campaign would already be the “new beginning” that many Frankfurters wished for after Lord Mayor Peter Feldmann was voted out.

In the search for the right candidate, the party executive set up a selection committee for the first time in order not to expose itself to accusations of politics in back rooms.

But when it became known on Tuesday that the commission, Rottmann, would only propose one candidate to the members at the party congress, criticism was voiced.

Some wanted multiple candidates to choose from, at least two.

And on social media, the question made the rounds as to whether Rottmann was actually a Frankfurter.

After all, she moved away in 2017 to run for the Bundestag in her home district of Bad Kissingen in Lower Franconia.

Others recalled that Rottmann already had a good chance of becoming a Greens candidate in the 2012 mayoral election, but had turned this down as a young mother.

Now she is only returning because the Greens have the best chance of winning the election.

In fact, the Frankfurt Greens have won the most voters in the past four elections (local, federal, state and European) and have developed into the strongest political force in the city.

Last but not least, it was argued that two Greens who could imagine running for office - Mayor Nargess Eskandari-Grünberg and City Councilor Hilime Arslaner - had a migration background and that this was not insignificant in Frankfurt.

Two notable absences

Expectations that all this would be discussed have not been fulfilled.

There were also no counter-candidates.

Eskandari-Grünberg and Arslaner were not present.

Instead, many old Greens, such as Tom Koenigs and Jutta Ebeling, who certainly worked in the background to ensure that this freestyle was a success and not dismantled.

The base was also interested in content: For example, the question of how Rottmann – should she be elected mayor – would act as a member of the Fraport AG Supervisory Board on the subject of climate-damaging emissions from air traffic.

The candidate pointed out that she was celebrating an anniversary because she had not set foot on an airplane for ten years.

But where flying is unavoidable, flying must become free of fossil fuels.

This is a huge challenge, which Rottmann believes will be decisive for the existence of the airport and global air traffic.

"Frankfurt has to be at the forefront with the solutions."

Rottmann had previously made it clear in her speech that she sees the most important task for herself as making the city climate-neutral by 2035.

She is convinced that it is not possible "to choose between prosperity, the environment and social security".

Investments in the energy transition and in energy savings are not a luxury, but protect against poverty.

For "doing the right thing, we need discussions," she said: "We listen and don't know in advance what's best."