Office for Election Losers? – “Sir minus 70%”: Tursky faction rehearses uprising

Behind closed doors, newly elected mayor Johannes Anzengruber is negotiating the details of his ‘Caprese’ coalition, which has been more or less fixed since the elections. Some of his supporters have already expressed their anger on social media over JA’s planned alliance with the Greens and SPÖ, with the kind support of the KPÖ.

Multi-official Willi is not a role model
At the heart of the negotiations, which should be completed on Friday, is the issue of the division of the departments. According to reports, Anzengruber would not be averse to transferring responsibility to the “New Innsbruck” and the FPÖ in order to put cooperation on the broadest possible basis and avoid a concentration of functions as in the era of mayor Georg Willi .

Increase the city Senate from seven to nine
But red and green are at odds, at least in the FPÖ. If the work still has to be divided among several shoulders, Anzengruber could expand the city senate from the current seven to nine members. The eighth seat would go to the FPÖ, the ninth to the SPÖ. City party chairman Benjamin Plach was in discussion here as a municipal councilor on Monday.

Expensive, but not a real job
But that would mean that there are at least two non-executive city council members, namely those from the FPÖ, who each take home 4,700 gross per month – with no further obligations than one city senate meeting per week, and not always.

Turkish voters defected
However, Florian Tursky from the new – and immediately defunct – alliance ‘Neues Innsbruck’ could possibly expect to be in charge of the department. One possible reason: according to an election analysis by statistician Erich Neuwirth, Anzengruber also owes his victory to the Turkish supporters who defected en masse to him in the second election.

No offices for election losers
But Tursky’s faction is deeply divided. People oppose departmental leadership, which would also be a clear signal to the electorate to support a government operating under Anzengruber, who is excluded from the ÖVP and is also very left-wing. But this problem isn’t just causing things to boil over within the group. “Mr. minus 70 percent” is what Tursky is called internally because he lost ten of his previous fourteen mandates from Für Innsbruck, VP, Senior Citizens’ Association and “Lebenswert”.

Tursky’s support is waning
Of the remaining four, three were said to have been contributed by Für Innsbruck, but only one by the ÖVP. 80 percent of their 2018 voters are said to have defected to Anzengruber, meaning that Tursky, who has been chairman of the ÖVP city party since autumn 2023, has virtually no support in his own party.

Travel to the desert
That’s not the only reason some people would rather send him into the political wilderness today rather than tomorrow. Speaking of the desert, Tursky was currently traveling abroad in Dubai, rumor has it, to make business contacts. Tursky himself could not be reached for comment.

From State Secretary to yes man
If Tursky were to give up, the list would likely implode. A retreat of senior representative BR Klara Neurauter (74) to third place on the list is as completely out of the question as that of Christine Oppitz-Plörer to second place. An administration for Tursky with no less than 13,300 euros gross salary could possibly prevent the inferno.

But for that, the ex-state secretary would have to say ‘yes’ and ‘amen’ to everything that the Red, Green and Anzengruber negotiated for him. Entering the private sector is probably the more pleasant option.