Initiative mayor for Dresden

The “OB for Dresden” initiative emerged in November 2000 from the knowledge that the “big” parties in Dresden had not yet succeeded in finding a suitable, non-partisan candidate for a position for the 2001 mayor election as a challenger to the again Candidate incumbent Herbert Wagner ( CDU , Lord Mayor of Dresden (OB) since 1990) and Wolfgang Berghofer , whose candidacy was in the room.

The main initiators were the lecturer Christiane Filius-Jehne, the political scientist at the TU Dresden , Dr. Dietrich Herrmann, the freelance project developer Werner Becker and the bookseller Christian Bahnsen. Initiators and later members, who mainly came from Dresden's cultural and academic circles, belonged to different parties or were non-party.

As a result of several public appeals, various, even completely absurd, candidates were brought into discussion from outside. After a series of exploratory talks with potential candidates and potential support groups and parties, the search for candidates came to Ingolf Roßberg (member of the FDP ), whose candidacy was publicly announced on February 16, 2001. In March 2001, for formal legal reasons, the initiative was reorganized into an electoral association (board of directors of the registered association : Christiane Filius-Jehne, Dr. Dietrich Herrmann, Norbert Pfütze, Andreas Querfurth) and became the carrier of the nomination for the mayoral election on June 10, 2001. One after the other, the SPD , Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen , ÖDP , FDP and, after Wolfgang Berghofer's refusal to run as their candidate, also the PDS declared their support.

After her candidate Ingolf Roßberg received the most votes in the first ballot, but missed the absolute majority with 47%, a second ballot was required on June 24, 2001, in which Wolfgang Berghofer then also stood in order to increase the chances of the incumbent CDU To strengthen Lord Mayor Herbert Wagner, as Berghofer later admitted. In the second ballot, Roßberg, in whose favor Friederike Beier (1st ballot 8.9%) had renounced, won with 47.1% compared to 40.0% for Wagner and 12.2% for Berghofer. The electoral association dissolved after completing its tasks in 2002/2003, the association was liquidated in 2004.

The initiators and activists of the citizens' initiative were then co-founders of the initiative “Help for Dresden - Citizens Help Citizens” during the flood in Dresden in August 2002 , which at that time in cooperation with the Dresden Cultural Office and in consultation with the city administration provided most of the mutual flood aid for citizens coordinated for citizens.