Repeated ballots slow committee appointments
Confusion over the agenda and election procedures repeatedly interrupted the meeting, though council members completed the organizational decisions needed to begin their substantive work. Appointing the youth welfare committee alone took roughly two hours.
Members and their substitutes had to be elected through several ballots and runoffs. Each new round required voting papers to be printed, handed out and completed. Andreas Tönjes of Die PARTEI, known for extending council debates, joked that this time he was not responsible for the delay.
Council Chair Angela Kirstges said the rules of procedure were at fault and urgently needed revision. Speaking to reporters afterward, Haarmann made faster procedures a top priority and identified digital voting and elections as one possible way to reduce delays.
Kirstges returns as council chair
Kirstges, of WIN@WBV, retained the chair she held during the previous council term, defeating Tönjes by 30 votes to 13, with one abstention. The council selected Marvin Hager of the SPD as first deputy chair and Sven Schoolmann of the CDU as second deputy chair.
Gesche Marxfeld of the SPD was elected first honorary mayor, and Uwe Heinemann of the CDU became second honorary mayor. The AfD was the only group to nominate opponents: Thorsten Moriße challenged Marxfeld, while Eric Eckhoff ran against Heinemann. In the secret ballots, Moriße received 11 votes and Eckhoff nine, although only eight AfD council members were present.
The appointments followed the September 13, 2026, city council election. According to NDR, the SPD led with 21.7% of the vote, ahead of the AfD at 20.4%, the CDU at 16.6% and WIN@WBV at 11%. The remaining results were 8.6% for the Greens, 6.9% for the Left Party, 3.9% each for GfW and UWG WHV, 2.9% for Die PARTEI and 2.7% for the FDP.
Haarmann takes the oath amid an AfD protest
Haarmann kept her remarks brief when she was sworn in, citing the meeting's length. She urged council members to work together and concentrate on Wilhelmshaven's positive development.
An independent, Haarmann won the September 13 lord mayoral election with 55.5% of the vote, according to NDR. She is the first woman to lead Wilhelmshaven's city hall, and her eight-year term officially began on November 1, 2026.
NDR reported that Haarmann is 55, has a doctorate in educational science and is the mother of two adult children. She works as managing director of a social organization and also at a private vocational academy in Wilhelmshaven. Eight parties backed her election campaign.
Nearly everyone in the chamber stood during the oath, but four of the eight AfD members present remained seated. Moriße defended their conduct by claiming that the lord mayoral election had not been democratic, referring to his exclusion from the race over doubts about his loyalty to the constitution. Kirstges sharply criticized the members for what she considered inappropriate behavior.
The Wilhelmshaven electoral committee barred Moriße from the election on July 28, 2026, finding that he did not provide sufficient assurance that he would uphold the free democratic constitutional order at all times. The Oldenburg Administrative Court rejected his emergency application to join the race on August 21, 2026.
Council limits administrative committee to eight seats
The administrative committee will have eight members this term, rather than the 10 it had in previous terms. A motion to increase membership above the legally required eight seats failed.
Detlef Stump of the AfD suggested that the decision was intended to prevent his group, now the council's second largest, from securing more committee seats. Tönjes argued that a larger committee would better reflect a council made up of so many groups.
The AfD also sought to add legal affairs to the planned committee for security and order. Its proposal called for a lawyer supplied by the administration to serve as an advisory member, with the aim of reducing city spending through advance scrutiny of potentially expensive legal proceedings.
Council members and the administration questioned whether the arrangement was lawful. They said the proposed membership was not permissible and that oversight of legal proceedings belonged to the administration's leadership rather than a council committee. The council voted not to consider the motion.
Moriße and Martin Burkhart of GfW then briefly argued over the decision. Moriße repeatedly characterized the council's conduct as undemocratic; Burkhart countered that the AfD proposal was unlawful.
Sparkasse board appointment remains unresolved
The council could not appoint a new administrative board for Sparkasse Wilhelmshaven after nominations reached an impasse. The SPD, CDU, AfD and WIN@WBV had named their nominees when a drawing of lots gave the Left Party the right to nominate an additional member.
Only half of the board members appointed by the council may also be city council members, and the other groups' nominations had already filled that quota. The Left Party could not provide an outside nominee, while no other group was willing to withdraw a council member from its nominations.
The existing board therefore remains in office until a solution is found, including former Lord Mayor Carsten Feist, who is ill, as its chair. Haarmann told reporters afterward that no group was to blame for the deadlock and that a solution needed to be found quickly.
Election objections set for a separate meeting
Ten objections were filed with Wilhelmshaven's election office following the municipal and lord mayoral elections. Their consideration was removed from the inaugural meeting's agenda.
According to the City of Wilhelmshaven, the council is scheduled to discuss and decide on the objections at a separate public special meeting on Wednesday, November 18, 2026, beginning at 3 p.m.
