Local elections in Lower Saxony: The Greens and SPD dominate the first rounds

The local elections in Lower Saxony on Sunday included, among other things, numerous positions for mayors and district administrators. In the state capital Hanover, the Green Mayor Belit Onay is clearly ahead. The 45-year-old politician, who has ruled the city of 500,000 since 2019, received almost 45.5 percent of the votes after almost all votes were counted on Sunday evening. The SPD candidate Axel von der Ohe comes in second place with around 21.6 percent.

This means there will be a runoff election in Hanover in two weeks between Mayor Onay and the city treasurer von der Ohe. The CDU candidate Peter Karst, general manager of the Chamber of Crafts, only received 13.9 percent of the votes and is ahead of the AfD candidate Jessica Schülke, who achieved eleven percent. The result is a setback for the CDU, which wanted to at least reach the runoff election.

See F.A.Z. articles more often in your search results

F.A.Z. prefer on Google

In the election of the president of the Hanover region, after counting almost all votes, SPD candidate Eva Bender is clearly ahead of CDU candidate Oliver Junk, who has 22 percent, with 30.6 percent. Both will go into the runoff election in two weeks. In third place is the Green Party candidate Sinja Münzberg, who achieved 17.4 percent. AfD politician Nicolas Lehrte came in fourth with 15.2 percent.

Runoff elections also in Braunschweig, Oldenburg and Osnabrück

In Braunschweig, Mayor Thorsten Kornblum is clearly ahead with 43.3 percent of the vote, according to the provisional official final results. The SPD politician will be running in a runoff election in two weeks against the CDU candidate Maximilian Pohler, who received 17.2 percent.

There will also be a runoff election in Oldenburg, where it is about the successor to the outgoing mayor Jürgen Krogmann (SPD). The SPD member of the state parliament Ulf Prange, who received 33.2 percent according to the provisional official final result, will then compete against the Green candidate Jascha Rohr, who received 30.5 percent of the vote on Sunday.

In Osnabrück, after the first round of voting, incumbent Katharina Pötter (CDU) is clearly ahead with 42.2 percent, according to the provisional official final result. In two weeks, however, she still has to go into a runoff election against the Green state parliament member Volker Bajus, who has 22.3 percent of the vote.

The Göttingen town hall will no longer be led by a social democrat. In the fight to succeed Mayor Petra Broistedt, SPD candidate Florian Dinger missed out on making it into the runoff election after almost all votes were counted with 21.6 percent. This will instead take place between the Green candidate Onyeka Oshionwu, who received 41.4 percent of the vote, and the CDU candidate Ehsan Kangarani, who got 27.9 percent.

After almost all votes have been counted, there will also be a runoff election for the office of district administrator in the Göttingen district between the SPD candidate Ulrike Witt, who got 25.4 percent, and the CDU candidate Harm Adam, who got 23.5 percent. The previous district administrator Marcel Riethig came to 14.9 percent. Riethig no longer stood for the SPD after he fell out with the leadership of the district administration and disciplinary proceedings were initiated against him.

In Wolfsburg, incumbent Dennis Weilmann received the necessary votes for re-election in the first round of voting. According to the preliminary official final results from Sunday evening, the CDU politician received 50.1 percent of the votes.