Thorsten Stolz remains district administrator of the Main-Kinzig district: The 43-year-old social democrat prevailed on Sunday with 67.5 percent against his challenger Gabriele Stenger.

While Stolz had to keep five opponents at a distance six years ago, the Hanau CDU politician was his only competitor this time.

Voter turnout was 26.7 percent.

Hanns Mattes

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The success of the already favored incumbent marked the end of a calm election campaign in Hesse's most populous district with almost 420,000 inhabitants.

However, the district will lose this feature if Hanau, which has more than 100,000 inhabitants, regains the district freedom lost in the local government reform as planned.

The fact that Stolz and Stenger hold similar positions on many issues is due to the political constellation in the district council: the SPD and CDU work together in a stable coalition there – overly harsh criticism of the district administrator’s political course is out of the question.

The two partners have different positions, especially on the question of whether the district should set up its own housing association.

Stolz and the SPD want that, Stenger and the CDU don't.

No surprise

Things were calm on Sunday even after the polling stations in the Main-Kinzig-Forum were closed.

The first results from the 29 towns and municipalities in the district already showed that there would be no surprises and that pride would remain in office.

The winner of the election, Stolz, thought his result was “pretty good”; it was a great endorsement of his previous work and of himself.

He himself had previously assumed a "60 to 40".

He sees the comparatively low voter turnout as part of a trend: the rate is also falling in elections in the cities.

Gabriele Stenger was also satisfied: A third of the votes in competition with the incumbent is a good result.

She is particularly pleased with the good performance of 40 percent in her hometown of Hanau.

During the election campaign, she also managed to place the issues that were important to her.