Dundorf

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Beer Entrepreneur Egon Moltenhauer Wins DSDP Leadership Election
October 5732

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Egon Moltenhauser is an outsider who knows very well the DSDP, and became the party's first non-politician leader.

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DUNBURG - In an unexpected turn of events, Egon Moltenhauer, a former CEO of Hendricker, one of Dundorf's top beer producers, has won the second round of the Social-Democratic leadership election, winning more than 55% of the votes as an outsider. The election was planned after incumbent Secretary Renate Reinhardt announced her intention to retire following the 5730 elections, in which the DSDP performed poorly. Contesting this internal elections were some of DSDP's most prominent politicians: Kasper Brozovìc, already a candidate for Secretary in 5607, and today sitting as the DSDP Group Leader in the Bundestag, Gertrude Von Koepf, the former President from 5725 to 5730, who was defeated for re-election two years ago and Peer Van Der Koff, a long-time senior politician who held the position of Minister of Justice. A fourth candidate, an outsider who was unexpected to be competitive at all, was Mr. Moltenhauer, who, after retirement as CEO, decided to get into politics "to build a better Dundorf and to renew the Social-Democratic Party".

In the race, Mr. Brozovìc and Mrs. Von Koepf ran as representatives of the most left-wing groups of the DSDP, while Mr. Van Der Koff ran as a moderate. A long time supporter and donor to the party, Mr. Moltenhauer is not affliated with any group within the DSDP and ran as a 'pragmatic progressive'. To be fair, Egon Moltenhauer is not a new figure for the DSDP at all. As a private citizen, he never hid his support for the DSDP and was the external keynote speaker in several party meetings.

The "Moltenhauer surprise", as it has been rebranded, started in the first round of voting, held exclusively among the elected officials (Bundestag + Landtag) across the country.  Mr. Brozovìc easily cleared the field with 95 votes, also thanks to his prime position among his Bundestag peers, securing the first position in the run-off. Mr. Moltenhauer was unexpectedly able to persuade enough members, especially in the regional landtags, to vote for him, securing 65 votes against two more established candidates and accessing to the run-off.

The run-off was held yesterday among all members registered with the DSDP, approximately 1.4 millions in the whole nation, and incoronated Mr. Moltenhauer as the new Federal Secretary of the Party, the first ever non-professional politician to be elected as such. Decisive to his victory, our experts say, was the endorsement of former Justice minister Peer Van Der Koff (who notoriously doesn't get very much along his colleague Kasper Brozovìc), furthermore, many members of the party felt it was time for an outsider to renew and embolden the party once again, according to an exit poll. Mr. Moltenhauer will assume the office of Federal Secretary tomorrow, a day which will mark the end of the long tenure of Mrs. Reinhardt, lasted more than 25 years.

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5732 DSDP Leadership Election:

1st Round (elected members only: 222. Top two advance to membership run-off vote)
- Kasper Brozovìc of Grozvic: 95 - advance
- Egon Moltenhauer of Dunlake: 65 - advance
- Gertrude Von Koepf of Oderveld: 34
- Peer Van Der Koff of Dunlake: 28

2nd Round (registered: 1.399.913, turnout 88,2%)
- Egon Moltenhauer of Dunlake: 682.799 (55,3%) - elected Federal Secretary
- Kasper Brozovìc of Grozvic: 551.827 (44,7%)