Weeks after he announced that he will not seek re-election, Mayor Michael B. Coleman said yesterday that City Council President Andrew J. Ginther should be the next mayor of Columbus.

Coleman and Ginther appeared together yesterday inside a nearly empty Lincoln Theatre, where the city’s longest-serving mayor called Ginther “a man of integrity.”

“It took great pain and deliberation to determine whether I was going to run for mayor for a fifth term,” Coleman said. “It was difficult for me, because I love this city so much.”

Once he made that decision, Coleman said, he had no question that Ginther was the best successor.