Image: APA/HELMUT FOHRINGER
To date, the candidates for the SP chair can bring in the necessary application documents. The prerequisite for a candidacy is the support of 30 SP members.
An intermediate status as to how many applications already meet the criteria was not mentioned. Originally, 73 candidates had applied, some jokers were already public. Only four women are said to be among the applicants.
Women are also underrepresented among the members. Exact figures could not be given. “There is an excess of men,” said SP federal manager Christian Deutsch. Women’s representatives assume that slightly more than a third of the members are female. One reason given is that women often cannot afford the annual fee of 78 euros.
Whether women’s solidarity is a factor in the vote remains to be seen. But what the SP women want to clarify is how the candidates position themselves on women’s issues. SP women’s chairwoman Eva-Maria Holzleitner has worked out a questionnaire with her organization that the candidates are supposed to answer.
The list is long: what does feminism mean to you? How do you feel about the odds? How can politics promote half-half as a lived reality? What is the first action you would take in government to close the pay gap? Would you ban sexist advertising? It is also planned that the SP women will invite the candidates to an online hearing.
The SP member survey starts on April 24th. Before that, on April 13, the SP Presidium and Board of Directors met. There they want to determine where the party congress should take place (Linz and Vienna are shortlisted) and whether there will be rules for the SP’s internal election campaign.
In contrast to SP leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner and Burgenland’s Hans Peter Doskozil, Traiskirchner mayor and SP candidate Andreas Babler does not want to do without a runoff. This is a matter of respect, he said. If there is no 5 in front of a candidate, he would prepare for a runoff election – probably at the party conference.
Source: Nachrichten
