For Mayor Michael Ludwig, celebrations of Erdogan victories in the middle of Vienna fall into the same category as anti-corona demonstrations. The celebrations were “loud but peaceful,” he says.
Mayor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ) does not see the fact that Sunday evening favorites were paralyzed by fans of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and that Erdogan’s election victory was also loudly applauded in other parts of Vienna, not a sign of an integration problem. “It was an event that was very noisy but peaceful. There are administrative violations. The Viennese police checked this very carefully and there were also reports in individual cases,” summarizes Ludwig. He did not want to evaluate the content of the meetings.
Erdogan Celebrations Like Anti-Covid Demos?
Ludwig commented on the Erdogan rallies during the presentation of the “City Barometer”. This means, among other things, that a third of the city’s population feels “not accepted by the community”. Ludwig does not want to exclude that Erdogan’s celebrations were also a conscious sign of positioning against the majority of society, but draws parallels with other demonstrations: “For a long time we were confronted with marches in Vienna, to which many people came with buses from other states to document their dissatisfaction, fueled by various reasons. Very few of them were Viennese. It turns out that ‘not feeling accepted’ can have various causes.”
The Vienna ÖVP saw Ludwig’s statements as proof that “the SPÖ practices absolute denial of Vienna’s huge integration problems”. According to party leader Karl Mahrer, it is not about a “peaceful celebration”, but about “imported nationalism”.
Record participation in elections among Turks in Austria
About 108,000 Turks in Austria were eligible to vote in the second round last weekend. Almost 40 percent live in Vienna. In the first ballot, 62,349 Turks also cast their vote. In Austria, a record participation of 56.17 percent was recorded, more than seven percent more than five years ago.
Their votes carry little weight in the race for the Turkish presidency, but the symbolic effect is much greater. Austria is firmly in the hands of Erdogan. But Turkey’s traces in Austria go much deeper. Because on January 1, 2023, 161,078 people born in Turkey were living in Austria – 65,646 in Vienna alone. Already 14 percent of the two million people with a migration background in Austria have Turkish roots and about 59% of the population with a migration background from Turkey have Austrian nationality.
However, with Turks with a longer migration history, good friends usually come from their own country of origin. Paradox: A quarter of immigrants from Turkey feel better represented by politicians in their country of origin than by Austrian politicians. This is evident from the current report on social cohesion.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
