Green Assembly – Apologies and Appeals – or Lessons?

“Trust instead of memoranda” – this should be the motto, Mair said in his sometimes emotional speech. At the same time, he apologized for the poor election results in last year’s state elections: “I’m sorry it wasn’t possible anymore. And that we didn’t convince as many young people as we wanted.” At the same time, one should not get into discussions and therefore also provide the media with ammunition: “I would like a signal that the Greens themselves are divided.” One must show solidarity, therefore: “I ask for your solidarity.” The 39-year-old club president urgently asked for confidence in him – namely “in what I can and cannot do.”

Mair as “livestock watchdog”
The position of state spokesman is “a thankless task with little power.” Mair admitted that there have also been conflicts in the state of Greens in the past and that they are going through hard times. But it is now a matter of “falling in love with the Greens again” and creating “topic leadership from the opposition”. In addition, they want to win over young people again and become a “green youth movement”.

In terms of content, Mair presented his “Vision for Tyrol”. He envisions a country with, for example, a public transport ticket for everyone, national resilience in the field of the energy system, electric buses and wind turbines throughout the country and a home for people from all over the world ‘with their dreams’. Tyrol should be a country “full of opportunity and fairness”. And also: “We are the only force left of center emerging against the devastation of the landscape.”

Mair did not agree
Theoretically, someone else – despite the relevant application period – could have applied for the position of state spokesman at the state assembly and entered the race against Mair. However, it is not surprising that this did not happen. Recently, there was concrete speculation within the party about a last-minute candidacy for National Councilor Barbara Neßler. However, the latter waved it to the APA on Thursday and stated that it wanted to support Mair.

“Generate more political weight”
For Mair, the most important thing will be to keep the number of deletions down. He did not want to announce a result pain threshold in advance. However, he has “of course” defined one for himself, says Mair, who with his election wants to end the separation of party and mandate that has always been practiced in the state party. Until now, the spokesperson for the Green State – most recently Christian Altenweisl, who is no longer a candidate – had no political mandate and was largely unknown to the general public. This needs to be changed now and more political weight needs to be generated in general.

From government back to opposition
After the state elections last autumn, with Mair as party leader, the Greens ended up on the opposition bench after almost ten years of government participation. In the elections they lost 1.5 percentage points (result: 9.2 percent) and had to accept the loss of a mandate. Since then at the latest there has been a lot of rumbling, sometimes in public. Mair has recently faced public opposition within the party at the district level. He was accused of lack of leadership skills, communication and transparency.

Innsbruck is even more upside down. Mayor Georg Willi has been hit politically there, most recently being targeted for a special contract made known by the city’s ex-head of human resources. Last November, three Green councilors caused a bang, left the parliamentary party and founded their own club.