Et was July when Dresden’s Lord Mayor Dirk Hilbert was confirmed in office for a further seven years by the residents of the Saxon state capital. “Resolute”, “competent” and “connecting” – these were the attributions with which the 51-year-old FDP politician advertised himself on large posters and was also supported by the CDU and its federal chairman Friedrich Merz. Five months later, however, the opposite impression prevails, because Hilbert and the city council have become entangled in a power game about the occupation of the city leadership that is second to none.
Five of seven mayoral posts – namely for finance, culture, social affairs, environment and economy – have been vacant for months after their term of office expired. Only the mayors for education and transport are still in office. There are candidates, but so far their election has failed either because of the city council or because of the veto of the mayor.
In the meantime, the situation has gotten so bad that Saxony’s state directorate, as the municipal legal supervisor, sent a fire letter to the town hall last week. It gives the impression that the trust of the Dresden citizenship in both the mayor and the city council factions and their ability to act have suffered greatly, it says. In particular, the authority sees the proper operation of the city administration at risk and urges “to ensure that the council and mayor continue to pursue the political process with the necessary seriousness and intensity and the necessary willingness to compromise”. The authority also proposes hiring a mediator.
At least the parliamentary groups have accepted a proposal
Hilbert, who has always said that he and the city council would have to solve the problem himself, now sees this as the last resort. On Thursday, he proposed to the parliamentary groups the former Federal Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU) and the former Green Party politician Gunda Röstel as mediators. After all, the first success is that the parliamentary groups accepted the proposal.
The background to the dispute is Hilbert’s plan to reduce the number of mayors and to change their departmental structure. Opposite him is a city council without a clear majority. Both the left-wing camp made up of the Greens, Left Party, SPD and a faction calling itself “dissidents” and the right-wing camp with AfD, CDU, FDP and Free Voters each have 35 votes. Although that can change again quickly, because council members happily switch between the factions. A special feature of Dresden, however, is that the stalemate usually remains.
Hilbert’s intention is also to better reflect the new majorities at the top of the city than before, where there were five deputies from the left and two from the right. So far, the CDU, Greens, Left and SPD had distributed the mayoral posts among themselves via an electoral alliance, which they could do with a two-thirds majority even without the mayor. But that majority has been gone since the last local election. According to the Saxon Municipal Code, the mayor can veto the election of mayors who fail to obtain a two-thirds majority, which he has done. Since then, the power struggle has raged; At every city council meeting, the election of the deputy is on the agenda, which then either fails because of the required majority, a veto, or simply because the factions take it off the agenda again because no majority is foreseeable.
The communal posse has been dominating the headlines for months with no solution in sight. In the meantime, the mayor himself has asked the state administration whether the five mayoral posts should not be completely re-advertised because the previous procedure had failed. The authority itself takes the case very seriously, explains its spokesman. Such a situation is extremely rare, but in case of doubt it can have serious consequences. If those involved do not agree, the state administration could remove the power of the mayor and either appoint the mayor himself or an administrator. Those involved don’t want it to get that far. After successful moderation, the next election attempt should now be on the agenda for January.