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Local government intro

The city government of Leipzig resides in the Neues Rathaus (new city hall) located at Martin-Luther-Ring 4-6. Construction of it was completed in 1905, when it replaced the - you guessed it - Altes Rathaus (old city hall, Markt 1), which was rapidly approaching the architectural equivalent of senility at 348 years old. The Neues Rathaus underwent a complete renovation in the 1990s. Today you can climb the 110-metre tower overlooking the city centre.

At the last city council elections in 2004, the CDU (Christian Democratic Union), SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) and PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) split the majority with 25% of the vote each, followed by the Green Party with 10%. The mayor, Wolfgang Tiefensee (SPD), was re-elected in April 2005 by a narrow majority. His stay in the Neues Rathaus would be a short one, however. At the end of 2005, the newly elected German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, selected Tiefensee to be her Federal Minister of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs. A by-election was held in February 2006, which Burkhard Jung (SPD) won by a sound majority.

Saxony’s capital is Dresden, a beautiful baroque city on the Elbe River about an hour’s drive southeast of Leipzig. The Saxon Parliament and all state ministries are seated there.