Overview

• After taking 34% to Severin Fischer’s 16.9% in the first round, Noosha Aubel heads into the October 12 runoff as the frontrunner.
• Aubel, running as an independent, is backed by Greens, Die Andere, BSW and Volt, pledges no backroom deals, and plans to govern via issue-based majorities even as Die Andere disagrees with her stance on the Brauhausberg campus project.
• Fischer labels Aubel’s approach “experimental” and campaigns on “reliability,” seeking support from voters of eliminated candidates as CDU, Linke and AfD decline to issue endorsements.
• City finances are a central fault line, with a planned €30 million deficit and debt described by a local business council as several hundred million euros; Fischer offers no cut list, while Aubel calls for priority-setting with the council.
• Both contenders focus on supply-side housing steps such as densification, attic conversions and serial construction via municipal, cooperative and private builders, with Aubel proposing a housing exchange agency and Fischer emphasizing voluntary downsizing.