One is surprised that in Mainz, which has recently become very rich, there were "only" seven candidates who are interested in the chief post in the city hall that is to be filled on February 12th.

Even though there are ten applicants in the smaller Darmstadt and 20 in Frankfurt who want to succeed Jochen Partsch (Die Grünen) and Peter Feldmann (SPD).

In Mainz, where Michael Ebling (SPD) worked so far, there will probably be a lot of exciting things going on in the next eight years, so there will definitely be a lot to do.

Markus Schug

Correspondent Rhein-Main-Süd.

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The municipality, which had been indebted for decades and most recently at almost 1.3 billion euros, was able to free itself from its old debts on its own and within a very short time, which seemed unimaginable up to that point;

at least from the expensive cash advances.

Which is due to exorbitantly high trade tax revenues in 2021 and 2022.

And even if nobody is officially allowed to say it like that in the town hall, this can probably be attributed to the extraordinarily good business of the corona vaccine manufacturer Biontech, which is appropriately based in An der Goldgrube.

The bottom line is that the Office of Finance reports tax revenue of around 1.4 billion euros for each of the past two years, of which the lion's share is attributable to trade tax.

Ebling's departure took the SPD by surprise

Even the prospect of golden times could not keep the Lord Mayor Ebling, who was still elected for five years.

He left the town hall to save the state government as the new interior minister on behalf of the Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister Malu Dreyer (SPD);

and probably also to promote his own career planning.

With his departure, which was arranged almost overnight in October, the popular mayor took everyone by surprise – not least his own party, which, like the Mainz Greens, took a comparatively long time to sort itself out.

In the meantime, Mareike von Jungsenfeld (SPD) and Christian Viering (Die Grünen) have been named as the two protagonists of whom, from the point of view of the traffic light alliance, one should ideally succeed Ebling in March.

Nevertheless, the FDP, which also belongs to the town hall coalition, did not refrain from raising its profile and sending the 32-year-old lawyer Marc Engelmann into the race.

Focus on the candidates themselves

However, all three applicants are not really well known.

Which explains why almost all the podium rounds held in the city to date – and there have been many of them since the New Year – have been extraordinarily well attended.

Since this is a direct election, which according to the city administration around 163,000 Mainz residents are called upon to attend, the posters that have been adorning the roadsides for weeks are less about the content and more about the candidates themselves, who choose to call themselves "independent", " innovative", "from here and from the heart" or as "demonstrably successful".