At the end of the day, no party holds more than a third of the seats, so the only chance for the town’s parliament to move anything forward is to work together.

It is something that is reflected in the new structure of the town’s administration in the Rathaus.  Split into three “Dezernaten” or departments, the three-man team now running the town is made up of the mayor who is a member of the SPD and elected separately, a member of the Green party, and perhaps the biggest surprise: a member of the CDU party.  The new split between them reflects the specialities of those running them.

Christof Fink - Hans-Georg Brum - Thorsten Schorr

The mayor (Hans-Georg Brum, SPD), for example, is responsible for personnel matters, tourism, culture, the press, town planning and local business.  You might call say they are things that belong “at the top”.

Alderman (Erster Stadtrat) Christof Fink from the Green party has – perhaps less surprisingly – taken over responsibility for environment issues, but also for energy, mobility, traffic, and even something called Bauaufsicht – the office that makes sure buildings are built the way they were approved.  The combination of environment, energy and traffic into one department is apparently something quite rare in German town halls and is maybe a sign of the times, and definitely a sign of the fact that one fifth of the town voted for the Green party last year.

The other half of his department will be responsible for child-care provision, the library and social services.  These are not exactly typical “green” topics, but challenging none the less, and especially with the amount of building work going on in the town at the moment demand for them is likely to increase.

Treasurer (Stadtkämmerer) Thorsten Schorr from the CDU party might seem an unlikely candidate for the office given that his party is in opposition, but it is worth considering that the party actually have the largest number of seats in the town’s parliament.  Just not a majority.  And it was a decision by that parliament to leave the party in charge of the town’s finances, something the ex-banker will be looking after along with tax collection, the registry office, Einwohnerbüro, police and fire services.

In a way it’s all very logical, and each seems to have the areas that they have their strengths in.  The greens have energy and the environment, the CDU opposition have finance with law and order, and the mayor is the public face of the town whilst at the same time running the Rathaus.

So everyone’s a winner?  Well, if they can work together like that then it should benefit everyone in the town.

Of course, if they get it wrong then they will be getting exactly those things wrong, that they canvass most strongly on at elections.  So they can’t really afford to, can they?

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Violence in the Taunus area
• Electric cars travelled from Stadtallendorf to Oberursel
• New playground at the Maasgrundweiher

The Bundestag-Mobil on the Epinayplatz in Oberursel

Inside there is an impressive backlit photo of the glass dome that sits on top of the Reichstag building in Berlin, and a number of terminals to access the Bundestag website.  At one end a monitor shows the current debate in the main parliament chamber.

The guides who accompany the exhibition are there to explain how the Bundestag works to local residents and answer their questions.  They especially take time to explain things in a simplified form for young children and a number of materials are available such as the Politbongo DVD – a series of short stories about a group of aliens that come to the Bundestag to find out how a democracy works.

Dr. Stefan Ruppert talking to local residents

On Saturday morning local MP (MdB) Dr. Stefan Ruppert paid a visit and spent a good two hours talking to local residents and answering their questions.  These dealt with topics such as the European Stability Mechanism, the Schlecker insolvency, the VAT rate for hotels, the minimum wage, Fachkräftemangel and issues at Frankfurt airport.

The exhibition tour is planned to include every constituency in the country between two general elections.

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• A sponsored walk to Oberstedten and back
• The new face of Oberursel’s administration
• Bonjour Provence! move into new premises

In particular I wanted to know about plans to replace the town swimming pool, which has been closed for several years.  Recently there has been some discussion about the town selling off land to finance the building work.  This would not be so bad, if there was not already a sports field on it!

Then I wanted to know what plans the town has for the future of the schools here, in particular any plans for Ganztagsschulen – schools that teach all day rather than just in the morning.

And finally I wanted to see what they had to say about the forthcoming Hessentag, in particular about the lack of information for businesses in the town and my recent attempts to get a permit to enter the closed-off part of the town in order to visit my customers during the event.

I was also interested to see how the parties approached me, as an EU citizen (there are other elections taking place tomorrow, that I am not allowed to vote in), and in general how prepared they were to answer questions from the public.  I went along the stands in the order that they were on the street.

CDU

I received one of my warmest welcomes at the CDU stand, and some of the most detailed information.  They would like to sell the sports field and the current swimming pool car park, but the number of car parking spaces would remain the same – just be on a different part of the complex.  This is something that I haven’t read previously.  Although I am somewhat sceptical about their plan to offer the sports clubs sponsored transport to other parts of the town, I can understand their predicament because they are trying to please the swimming clubs as well and keep everyone happy.

We did talk about schools, but other than how difficult it is to expand them I did not learn much, although I am at a loss to understand why the current expansion of the town’s grammar school did not include making it into a Ganztagsschule.

There was no response to my mentioning the Hessentag, but other than that I did at least feel as if someone took time to explain their policies to me.

FDP

The FDP were as good as presenting themselves as stereotypical liberals.  They have “agreed with the CDU” on the matter of the swimming pool – to the extent of putting out joint literature.  They are keeping themselves out of the Ganztagsschule discussion, but the person I spoke to did not think this was a viable solution for our schools.  Hessentag? There’s nothing they can do about it, and their members also have problems to deal with such as the rubbish collection being cancelled during the event.

In fact, the whole discussion felt a bit like “we don’t have an opinion”, or if they do they did not want to talk to me about it.

Die Linke

My visit to the Linke stand did not start off well, because the first person I met was more interested in explaining the other elections going on tomorrow, and did not seem to understand that I could not vote in them.  Eventually her colleague took over, and left her to pack up the stand (an hour before the other parties!)

The party would like to build the swimming pool as soon as possibly, even if costs more, and then cancel other projects in the town pay for it.  They did not want to talk about school, because that is a state (Land) thing.

OBG

OBG stands for Oberurseler Bürgergemeinschaft, ie. it is not even a regional party, but one that you only find in Oberursel.

They would also like to finance the swimming pool by cancelling other projects that they see as unnecessary, and are in favour of extending the length of the school day.

Interestingly it was here that I had one of the longest discussions about the Hessentag, especially about how it is going to affect local businesses.  For the first time, I was asked for my name and address to that someone could look into my problem and see if a solution can be found!

Die Grünen

I talked quite a bit about the Hessentag here as well – especially the question of whether it is going to be “Klimaneutral” (ie. have a zero-CO2 balance).  According to the Green party, there are some projects working towards this, but it is only going to be achieved by buying carbon credits).

Then we did have quite a good discussion about schools, but a lot of it theoretical because again it is not something the town can do much about.

They would like to sell the car park and not the sports field to finance the swimming pool, accept that doing away with a car park altogether is not an option.

SPD

My visit to the SPD stand started off as a typical opposition party talk – they could tell me what the other parties are doing wrong and they did not vote for them, but very little in the way of how they would do things differently as far as the swimming pool is concerned.

Schools were almost a non-issue – because it’s a state thing.

My biggest shock was when I mentioned my Hessentag problem, which they did vote for.  After listening to how I was having problems getting a permit to enter the town during the festival, I was whisked off to the mayor (who is also from that party).

However his first reaction was “das wird nicht gehen” – “that won’t be possible”.  After the SPD candidate explained the situation to him in more detail, we got as far as “müssen Sie wirklich in allen Zonen?” - “do you really need to access to all zones?” and finally the offer to send him an e-mail next week so that he can look into it.

To be honest, I do not know quite what to make of that offer.  It reminds me of the information evening last year, when anyone with a problem did not get their question answered and was told instead to contact the Rathaus .  Was it happening to me now?  I shall write that e-mail and then we will see what happens.

Summing up

I learnt a lot this morning to help me decide who to give my votes to tomorrow.  Some parties took more time for me than others, in some cases I was talking to top people within the town and sometimes I was talking to specialists for particular topics.  But sometimes I felt as if I was just meant to take a manifesto flyer and move on.

I found quite a lot of support for Ganztagsschulen, but a reluctance for the town to get involved and put any pressure on higher levels of government to introduce them – even to the extent of being told that this could have a knock-on effect on other areas, such as how to deal with the people currently employed to run homework clubs and similar schemes.

But it was definitely a worthwhile exercise, and I found several candidates who I would like to see in the town parliament, even if I do not entirely agree with their policies and would prefer their party not to have a majority.

Luckily I have 45 votes tomorrow and look forward to Kumulieren und Panaschieren.

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Hessen votes… again
• Anything is possible in German politics
• A sponsored walk to Oberstedten and back

At least, that makes it easy for the electorate, because they can vote for someone they like, but still express a preference for a different party to have a majority in parliament.

For those working out the make of the parliament, there is a highly complex formula that determines how many seats each party gets, and depends on the number of direct mandates that individual candidates achieve, leading to the infamous Überhangmandate, which are worth a post all by themselves one day.

Until a few years ago, when some parts of Germany – Hessen included – introduced something call “Kumulieren und Panaschieren”.

Put simply: in the forthcoming local election I have 45 votes to cast.  The ballot sheet is A2 size and has 207 candidates on it, grouped by political party.  (Residents in Frankfurt have 93 votes and apparently the voting booths have had to be widened so that the ballot sheet fits on the table!)

I can give my 45 votes to any of those 207 candidates.  I do not have to use up all 45, but I cannot give more than 45.

To make life simpler, I can just put a cross against a party and all of my votes will be distributed amongst their candidates – something I am sure many people do.

But I am not restricted to one party, I can distribute my votes across candidates from all 6 of the parties on the ballot sheet.  This is called Panaschieren.

As if that was not enough, I can also give up to 3 votes per candidate, as long as the total number of votes does not exceed 45.  This is called Kumulieren.

It is when you combine the two that the real fun starts!

You can

• put a cross against a party, but cross-out one or more of their candidates
• put a cross against a party, cross-out one or more of their candidates and re-distribute those votes to candidates from other parties
• put a cross against a party, cross-out one or more of their candidates and re-distribute those votes to other candidates from the same party
• vote for a party with less than 45 candidates, and give some of the votes to candidates from other parties

It is no wonder that people get confused, and voting takes longer than ever – it makes “first part the post” look like a picnic!

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Why I can’t vote next week
• Local Elections in Oberursel
• What purpose does the Ausländerbeiratswahl serve?

So what’s the Ausländerbeirat you might be asking?

The state of Hessen (Hesse) stipulates that any town with more than 1000 foreigners living in it must have one.  Once in office, the town has to inform them about any decisions that will affect foreigners.  They are also allowed to sit in on various committees.

The last time I heard anything from them was 5 years ago – at the last election.

Although you don’t really “hear” from them, other than the polling card arriving.  I don’t believe I’ve ever met a member of the Beirat.  They’ve certainly never come canvassing my vote at any time that I am aware of.  And since there is only a list of names on the ballot sheet and no political parties, deciding who to vote for is not an easy task.

Admittedly there was a presentation-type evening in the town hall a few weeks ago, where you could meet the candidates.  Apparently.  I read about it far too late on the town website to be able to go, and there was no mention of it on the polling card.

So I suspect that many people treat it a bit like the Eurovision Song Contest and vote for nationalities that they are sympathetic to.  Or at least names that sound like those nationalities.

Which makes me wonder if we really need this Beirat.  Are we foreigners in the town so special, that our voices need to be heard more than any other social group at town meetings?

On the other hand, do we really care?  Considering that the turnout was just over 3%, I don’t think many people here do.

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Local Elections in Oberursel
• Kumulieren and Panaschieren
• Why I can’t vote next week