The election campaign for the Innsbruck mayoral office went according to the expected extension. Of the original thirteen candidates, Green incumbents Georg Willi and Johannes Anzengruber, who left the ÖVP in a heated dispute, were the two best placed. With just under 23 and 19 percent of all votes.
1.What now? The majority of those who voted two weeks ago did not want Willi or Anzengruber as mayor. Not to mention the 40 percent who stayed home anyway last election Sunday. If you add up the number of non-Willi Anzengruber voters and the total number of non-voters like a math game, each of the current opponents in the second round has little more than just one in ten Innsbruckers behind them.
2. Who will win? There are many self-proclaimed clairvoyants walking around the capital of Tyrol, who claim to already know the election winner. Since there are only two candidates left, half of them guess correctly. And will trumpet: “I always knew!” Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with serious election research.
3. Who decides the elections? These are the ones for whom Willi or Anzengruber is the second preference or even the lesser evil. One can assume that supporters of the FPÖ and the small remainder of ÖVP voters would prefer the bourgeois Anzengruber. Conversely, Willi would receive support from previous SPÖ and KPÖ voters. But Georg Willi is not ‘Fundi’, but has, to the dismay of his Greens, been bourgeois on the line for years and often even authoritarian instead of basic democratic.
4. Is a forecast even possible? The bourgeois camp in Innsbruck remains larger than “the left”. That would make Anzengruber the favorite. But this conclusion is seriously flawed. Willi would not have become mayor six years ago if he had been elected exclusively to the left of center. The race is completely open.
5. Does it make a fundamental difference who becomes mayor? Only on a personal emotional level. From a political perspective, the party lists of Willi and Anzengruber have a majority in the city council – which is appointed proportionally based on the parties’ vote share. Their cooperation is therefore likely. The two candidates know this and that is why they treated each other with friendly respect during the election campaign. Future politics in Innsbruck will probably be a compromise between Willi’s and Anzengruber’s programme. Not either-or.
Source: Krone
I am George Kunkel, an author working for Today Times Live. I specialize in opinion pieces and cover stories that are both informative and thought-provoking – helping to shape public discourse on key issues. My work is regularly featured across the network’s many platforms, including print media and social media.