Quo Vadis, ÖVP?
People’s Party general secretary Laura Sachslehner announced her resignation Saturday morning, saying the party had 'lost its way' and 'given up its values'
Servus!
On Saturday morning, quite announced and at a time when one would think it ill-advised to try and break news, the People’s Party’s (ÖVP) general secretary Laura Sachslehner announced her resignation. The reason was a difference of opinion between Sachslehner and her party over policy. She did not believe it right, she clarified in a Facebook post published that same day, that the forthcoming Klima- und Antiteuerungsbonus of €500 per adult—designed to offset the cost of inflation—was to be given to asylum seekers, a point she made in public last week in a full-frontal attack on the Green energy minister Leonore Gewessler.
That policy, Sachslehner argued, was a sign of a party that had “lost its way” and “given up on its core values.” She further criticized the ÖVP’s failure to adequately consider processing asylum applications in third countries, as the British government may do in the future with its Rwanda agreement, and its decision to raise entitlements at a time when sectors like the hospitality industry are facing personnel shortages. In spite of these concerns, Sachslehner declared she would not leave the party, but rather would return to state-level politics by taking up the seat on the Vienna city council she gave up when she took on the role of general secretary in January.
It has been clear for some time that Sachslehner—who rose to prominence as something of a troll in the Viennese political scene before being appointed general secretary by chancellor Karl Nehammer—was frustrated by aspects of coalition policy. Her pointed public intervention on the Klimabonus was far from her first. Sigi Maurer, head of the Greens’ parliamentary faction, implied that her party had previously tolerated Sachslehner since she was neither a member of the government nor parliament. Last week’s attack on Gewessler, however, was a bridge too far, and it seems that Sachslehner had to go lest she further undermine coalition unity.
Without high office in the party, she will no longer be a thorn in the coalition’s side in the same way. But with a platform and power base in Vienna—where she has the support of the local party—Sachslehner represents a danger to the national ÖVP itself, a party which is already all at sea, faced with an identity crisis and crumbling polling figures. Just this weekend, the Krone published a poll that showed that, were an election held tomorrow in the state of Upper Austria , the ÖVP would finish second on 28 percent, behind the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) on 29 percent.
That Sachslehner with her particular political outlook might not find herself out of place in the FPÖ indicates the pinch the ÖVP finds itself in. In the 2017 and 2019 elections, Kurz sought to attract floating far-right voters by taking a hardline position on immigration and asylum, winning big in the process. Now, preferring Coke to own-brand cola, those voters are returning home. The ÖVP’s numbers are tanking, but reaching out to far-right voters again in the same way would entail blowing up the coalition, for the Greens would never stomach the Sachslehner line. Quo vadis, ÖVP?
Bis bald!
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On May 5, 1969, Queen Elizabeth II stepped out of her plane at Vienna International Airport for her one and only state visit to Austria. Her arrival was heralded with a 21-gun salute, and she was greeted by then-president Franz Jonas, who presented the monarch with flowers. The Queen spent her first three days of the trip in Vienna, visiting the Hofburg and attending receptions at the Schönbrunn and Belvedere Palaces, an equine show at the Spanish Riding School, and a performance of Die Fledermaus at the State Opera House. From there, her tour branched out nationwide, with stops in the states of Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Salzburg, Tyrol—a visit which included a cheese tasting at a farm in Sistrans—and Styria. It was here that, perhaps, the highlight of her trip took place: a visit to the stud farm Piber, where Austria’s world-famous Lipizzaner horses are bred. On May 10, she and the Duke of Edinburgh flew back to London, never to return.