However, the SP federal party congress slipped out of control on Saturday. Not only did the delegates give their chairwoman Pamela Rendi-Wagner a disappointing result with 75.3 percent, but the event at the Vienna Trade Fair even had to be canceled due to a lack of attendance discipline. The proposals for the reform of the statutes could not be voted because not even half of the delegates were present. They are now decaying.
At the center of the party congress, which had the motto “social.demokratisch.gerade.jetzt”, stood the chairwoman, who was elected first female leader of the SP three years ago by 98 percent, but has since had to endure some internal headwinds. Almost coquettishly appeared her statement in advance, according to which her benchmark was the 71 percent that she had received in a vote of confidence to the base the previous year.
Even this defensive announcement would almost have been too exaggerated. Because although more than 90 percent voted Rendi-Wagner for the party executive, she only got 75.3 percent for the party chairman. That was the worst result since Bruno Kreisky, whom only 69.8 percent of the delegates had supported in the run-up to the bitter duel with Bruno Pittermann in 1967.
In view of the weak result, which was rattled down as quickly as possible by the chairman of the electoral commission, the further procedure was also unusual. Rendi-Wagner was not called on stage, there were no presents or the result was displayed on the video wall. She herself only spoke up again at the end of the party congress and was undeterred. “Right now” she wants to “fight further” for social democratic content and against the “Kurz system”.
Burgenland governor Hans-Peter Doskozil, the Lower Austrian provincial party leader Franz Schnabl and party chairman Pamela Rendi-Wagner.
Image: APA
The criticism of the VP was also at the center of her long, approximately 45-minute speech, which she kept largely free and which was also quite angular. An unprecedented moral low had been reached, stated the SP leader. There was talk of “rampant hustle and bustle” and “arrogance”. Rendi-Wagner de facto ruled out a coalition with a VP under Sebastian Kurz.
After the debate on the statute, a corresponding motion should have been voted on, even if it had not been supported by the party leadership in advance. But what the delegates thought of it was not found out. Because quite a few people preferred to spend the sunny afternoon elsewhere than at the fair, the minimum attendance was actually missed quite clearly. All motions on this point, including the direct election of the chairman, could therefore no longer be voted on. They can only be reintroduced in the run-up to the next party congress, which is scheduled to take place in 2024. The event on Saturday came to an abrupt end with short Rendi words of thanks and the “work song”.
Video: ORF reporter Claudia Dannhauser reports from the SP party conference
The mood had been cloudy for a few hours. The speech marathon on the applications was less listened to than thought about how the poor result for Rendi-Wagner had come about. Because not a single delegate had criticized the chairman on the stage. Above all, Lower Austrians, Styrians and Burgenlanders were suspected. Governor Hans Peter Doskozil, Rendi-Wagner’s most prominent critic, had retired from all federal functions at the party congress. In a streamlined broadcast, his Burgenland regional manager Robert Fuchs “took note of” the vote for the bodies and wished the elected “all the best and good luck”.
Of course, Rendi-Wagner was not the only one who had to live with a poorer result. While Krnten’s governor Peter Kaiser and Vienna’s mayor Michael Ludwig were at the top of the ranking, the Lower Austrian provincial chief Franz Schnabl had to make do with 83.5 percent as deputy. The militant Tyrolean chairman Georg Dornauer (86.7) and the second president of the National Council Doris Bures (88.6) also missed the 90 mark in the presidium.
