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The election campaign for the Paschinger SPÖ was quite turbulent in autumn 2021. Originally, Tina Blöchl, the current deputy mayor of Linz, should have stepped into the ring to succeed her party colleague Peter Mair as an SP mayoral candidate. However, this jumped off at short notice, and in her place the career changer Alois Pölzl was finally nominated. However, the election did not bring the desired result for the Social Democrats: the mayor’s chair went to the ÖVP with Markus Hofko, and the blacks also have the lead in the municipal council with 16 mandates. The SPÖ has ten municipal councils there.
“We have to digest this result first,” said von Pölzl in a first reaction after the election. The aspired critical debate should also pave the way for “a good deal of repositioning”. However, the debates did not bring Pölzl the desired success. He was neither elected deputy mayor (Pölzl had recommended himself for the office), nor did he manage to mend the rifts within the party.
“Time to Separate Ways”
“It’s time to go our separate ways,” Pölzl announced today that he had decided to leave the parliamentary group. In the future, he wants to get involved in municipal politics as a freelance mandatary. The thematic focus should be the townscape, living together in the community and sustainable mobility. With a view to future cooperation, Pölzl expects a “reasonable cooperation”, the mood in the municipal council has always been very “correct”.
The Paschinger SPÖ already has experience with such exits. For example, Peter Öfferlbauer moved into the municipal council in 2015 on an SP ticket, two years later he resigned and became an independent municipal councilor. In the 2021 elections, Öfferlbauer got five mandates with his newly founded “Junge Liste”.
SP Deputy Mayor Gisbert Windischhofer is keeping a low profile regarding Pölzl’s withdrawal. “I’m surprised that he’s getting out now because he was still at our annual exam two weeks ago and also worked,” it says on OÖN request.
Source: Nachrichten
