The Left Party in Frankfurt is calling on its members and voters to elect Mike Josef, the SPD's candidate, in the run-off election to fill the post of mayor on March 26. The party is critical of his record as head of the planning department. However, he is preferable to the candidate of the CDU, Uwe Becker, because he is "by no means electable for people who want a more social and democratic Frankfurt," as it says in the written election recommendation.

Rainer Schulze

Editor at the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The candidate of the Left Party, city councillor Daniela Mehler-Würzbach, was eliminated in the first round of voting on 5 March with 3.6 percent of the vote.

At their meeting on Saturday in Frankfurt-Preungesheim, the party members adopted by a large majority the call to participate in the run-off election. Among other things, Josef is criticized for the fact that rents in Frankfurt are still too high and the supply of subsidized housing is too low. Communal housing projects failed due to the far too high long-term rents.

The Left Party now expects Josef to oppose the expansion of the motorways around Frankfurt and to promote inexpensive local transport. The election recommendation is combined with the wish that Josef "finally bring about a change of policy for a social, ecological and anti-fascist Frankfurt".

"Election campaign without mistakes"

Most members are satisfied with the performance of their own candidate. At the meeting, Mehler-Würzbach received much praise for her commitment. Under the given conditions, she could not reach any more. The city councillor Michael Müller even attested to her "an election campaign without mistakes". An election recommendation is now important to give his own voters orientation, he said – combined with the "condition" that Josef now initiates a change of course in housing policy.

Becker, on the other hand, had already "blocked any social progress" as treasurer. The CDU candidate stands for a neoliberal and bourgeois policy. Like Müller, Becker also blame other party members for wanting to save the city's financial support for left-wing cultural institutions such as the Club Voltaire.

In a debate on the outcome of the mayoral election, the Left Party also practiced self-criticism. For example, it had not been possible to mobilise its own voters. This also has tactical reasons: Many voters would have preferred to influence with their vote who moves into the run-off.

Mehler-Würzbach now wants to enter the state parliament

But Jürgen Ehlers also said that many voters apparently believed that it no longer made sense for them to go to the ballot box. Some speakers also pointed out that the broad field of candidates had harmed a better result. City councillor Monika Christann said that the Left Party must ask itself why the "Bahnbabo" had so clearly passed its own candidate: "Maybe it's because it conveys a positive attitude to life. We need to talk about that."

Mehler-Würzbach himself thanked the members for their commitment in the election campaign: "We knew that we could not win. Nevertheless, we have invested a lot of resources." She herself was "not completely satisfied" with the result. But that's where we are right now." In the election campaign, she has learned a lot for the upcoming state election, in which she wants to compete as a direct candidate. So it was difficult to convey to the people in direct contact the "polyphony" of the party, which is divided at the federal level.

The left is at its best where it becomes concrete. "We put our finger in the wound and pointed out problems." The district chairman Axel Gerntke sees the mayoral election as "warming up" for the state election in autumn. Mehler-Würzbach had competently represented the positions of the party and had been present "everywhere".