Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen presented a new donation balance and exceeded the one million euro mark. So far he has received almost 95,000 euros from small donors and 150,000 euros from large donors. The Graz-based SLE Schuh GmbH is a newcomer with 45,000 euros. However, three quarters of the previous election budget came from the Greens, who supported their former party leader’s election campaign with EUR 755,233.
Since the last publication a week and a half ago, Van der Bellen has received about 12,000 euros in new small donations and 55,000 euros from large donors above 3500 euros. Renate Tojner (10,000 euros) and the Grazer SLE Schuh with 45,000 euros have also been added as major donors. The company of the chairman of Styria IV Stefan Stolitzka was one of the largest private donors to Van der Bellen in 2016. Media manager Gerhard Zeiler (50,000 euros) remains the largest donor this year. The Greens in Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler’s government each transferred 4,000 euros, the Greens (including state and regional parties) 755,233 euros.
Special thanks to small donors
Van der Bellens campaign manager Martin Radjaby-Rasset especially thanked the 660 small donors. “There is an independent and impartial electoral movement forming here and we are very happy about that,” he said in a broadcast, taking the one million milestone as a good sign. At the request of APA, it was not possible to find out how much money the campaign had planned and how much the Greens had promised. Radjaby said it was important to “get within range of the amount announced by other candidates”.
With this, Van der Bellen’s campaign manager is referring to the FPÖ, which says he has budgeted three million euros for his candidate Walter Rosenkranz. The anti-vaccination party MFG wants to invest around 100,000 euros in its campaign for party leader Michael Brunner. Dominik Wlazny aka Marco Pogo of the Beer Party and right-wing blogger Gerald Grosz have not yet given a specific budget.
Election campaign significantly cheaper this year
This means that the election campaign for the Hofburg will be significantly cheaper this year than it was six years ago. The FPÖ then invested eight million euros, Van der Bellen 7.9. However, the 2016 election campaign dragged on for nearly a year as the second round was canceled and repeated in December. In addition to 4.8 million euros from the Greens, Van der Bellen also managed to collect almost 3.1 million euros in private donations. Of this, 2.1 million euros came from small donations of less than 3,500 euros. The FPÖ then, just like this year, waived donations.
Source: Krone
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