Elections: 12-year-old becomes the first mayor in Grambow

The municipality of Grambow in the district of Northwest Mecklenburg elected a mayor for children and young people for the first time on Saturday.

Elections: 12-year-old becomes the first mayor in Grambow

The municipality of Grambow in the district of Northwest Mecklenburg elected a mayor for children and young people for the first time on Saturday. With a turnout of 30 percent, Ole Prokein received 90 percent of the votes, Mayor Sven Baltrusch told the German Press Agency on Sunday. He was the only candidate standing for election.

The aim of the new office is to better integrate older children and young people into the community and to give them responsibility, said Baltrusch in advance. In the community with just under 700 inhabitants, there are 130 children and young people, a high proportion of young people.

After initially four children had expressed their interest, in the end only Prokein was the choice. For the mayor, it is important to promote the understanding of democracy among young fellow citizens and to convey to them: "You have a voice, you have an opinion and you have the opportunity to make it known".

According to the information, the entire organization of the election was based on the other elections in the town: there was an election notification, a voter list, an election committee made up of people of the same age and voting took place in the community hall. A total of 68 children were entitled to vote and the following applied: 15 percent of them had to participate and the candidate had to achieve a majority of the votes for the election to be valid.

The youth mayor is now to be assigned a mentor who will accompany him in the exercise of his office. According to Baltrusch, this should be an adult who has previously agreed and who is not active in the community. One of the tasks of the office is to chair a youth assembly that meets about every two months and develops proposals. These should then be discussed in advance with the mayor and his deputies and brought to the municipal meeting. According to Baltrusch, there are also representative tasks.

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