TIROLER TAGESZEITUNG, editorial: “Hopefully there won’t be a sequel,” by Marco Witting

2023-12-15 23:00:11

Edition from Saturday, December 16, 2023

Innsbruck (OTS) – The deputy mayor’s chair, an ejector seat: Innsbruck’s local council has not only damaged this office through political games over the past six years. It’s time for the period to end.

There has never been enough in the Innsbruck local council for a House of Cards, a series of political intrigues. At most for a House of Watter cards. At the end of a period with little content but full of disputes, a deputy mayor was voted out of office again, so to speak as the final act of this season. For the third time already. This doesn’t just damage this office. But the entire credibility of city politics. The city deputies may go, the damage remains.
Whether more or less well justified or justified – the round of voting turns the office from deputy mayor to a joke mayor. Except there’s nothing funny about it. This can be seen in the ÖVP, for example. On many levels, they always insist that investigations by the WKSta are by no means a reason for a loss of office – unless it fits the concept in Innsbruck and goes against a renegade former party friend who is a competitor in the next election. The Green Party mayor Georg Willi is on board with this. This time he was (not without calculation) against the deselection of Johannes Anzengruber. He once started playing vote-out poker with Christine Oppitz-Plörer. And when it came to Uschi Schwarzl, other people agreed that she had to go as deputy mayor. Which, as with the other two former vice-presidents, has no influence on membership of the city senate or municipal council. There were also a number of unsuccessful applications against Schwarzl to remove her as a city councilor. Yes, such deselections are democratically legitimate and provided for in city law. Yes, the position of city deputy is a political office and not elected by the people. But abusing important positions for political showpieces was and is unworthy of the city.
Until the election on April 24, Hannes Anzengruber will present himself as a victim of a political intrigue and try to distract from his (experience) card fiasco. From the perspective of the ÖVP (and also the FPÖ), he is significantly less publicly visible as a result of being voted out. The interested reader notices: It’s no longer about working for the population. Even if everyone always emphasizes it in a high and holy way.
It’s time for the end of this council term to come to an end. Nobody needs a sequel to this season anymore. Will things get better with a newly chosen ensemble? Innsbruck would like that. Not only has people’s trust suffered in the six years, but also the necessary further development of the city.