Christoph Meineke, born 1979, is mayor of the municipality of Wennigsen (Deister) in Germany. He got elected in 2006 as an independent candidate without the support of a political party or initiative of voters. His election made headlines on a national level and to this day is used as a reference non-party politics in Germany. Meineke is a member of the presidium of the League of Cities of Lower Saxony. ("Niedersächsischer Städtetag") and of the Innovators Club of the German Association of Cities and Municipalities, and has developed a particular expertise on leveraging technology (such as Web 2.0 capabilities) in local politics. He established citizen participation programs in his city and received awards like the first German "Award for Digital Participation" or "Deutschlands Digitale Köpfe". He got re-elected by almost 90 % of the vote in 2014.