National Council election: KPÖ sends 2 candidates into the race

The KPÖ will go into the election campaign with a duo at the top in the upcoming National Council election in 2024. This was decided on Saturday at a joint conference of the Styrian and Federal governments.KPÖ with around 300 participants.

For the first time in 20 years, the Styrian KPÖ and the nationwide one KPÖ met again for a conference with communists from all over Austria. The participants gathered in the Graz Volkshaus and, according to federal spokesman Günther Hopfgartner, all but one dissenting vote voted to run in the National Council election. As a name was “KPÖ – Communist Party of Austria” decided.

Video: Dual leadership of the KPÖ in the election campaign

On the other hand, the top candidates were also elected: Graz-born Schweiger received 88.9 percent approval for first place on the list. Prochaska was elected second with 91.9 percent of the vote. Schweiger said at the press conference after the votes were counted: “I’m pleased that KPÖ to lead into the next election year.”The goal is to get into the National Council, “but we won’t bend” .

The KPÖ wants to score points with the population above all on the topics of inflation, increased housing costs as well as care and ecology: “We want to position ourselves where we already are, namely with people and their everyday concerns.”Neutrality and the role as mediator in war are also a central theme: “This worries people because the war is getting closer and closer to home and more and more people are fleeing to us because they are displaced by the war, and that raises questions” said Schweiger. “There is currently no social conscience in Parliament.”This is what we want to be in the House after the election.

Video: KPÖ – course set for the National Council election

Prochaska, who has worked in the nursing sector for 40 years, came to this as a result of the corona pandemic KPÖ: “They were the only ones who heard us” she said on Saturday. You experience every day “like the care hit the wall”become. Therefore, they say, a strong voice for healthcare workers is needed at the federal level.

The mayor of Graz, Elke Kahr “We are confident that we will have a good time next year together”. The hope is that they want to continue the work that they have been doing for years – in the municipalities, in the states and perhaps soon also at the federal level. Schweiger and Prochaska are “from life and know what they are talking about” . The “working people” would need a voice in parliament again, as would people who are disadvantaged and “long forgotten by the other parties”had been. She sees a chance to move in because “no worry or concern is too small for us” .

KPÖ sees disappointment in other parties

Kay-Michael Dankl, local councilor in the city of Salzburg and club chairman in the Salzburg state parliament, emphasized that many people in Austria are disappointed with the other parties: “With the KPÖ there is an alternative on the ballot paper.”He himself did not allow himself to be nominated as the top candidate because he was elected in Salzburg “you can’t dance at 1,000 weddings”. He will continue to work in Salzburg – as will Kahr in Graz. The mayor’s goal: to become a party once again with organizational coverage and Austria-wide, “who stands side by side with the people” .

When asked about his position in the Middle East conflict, Schweiger remained diplomatic: “It’s not about which side of death you take, but rather that we in Austria need a party that reminds us of one thing: neutrality has a value.”Austria should actively participate in the peace dialogue. What is happening in the Middle East “terrible” . There will be deaths on both sides.

Tobias Schweiger was born in Graz in 1990 and grew up in the Styrian capital. He was active in the Young Greens, co-founded the Young Left Party after the Federal Green Party’s election debacle in 2017 and then joined the KPÖ active. He has been since 2021 KPÖ-Federal spokesman and coordinates political work on housing throughout Austria. Bettina Prochaska was born in Radstadt in 1968 as the daughter of a carpenter and an office worker, has two children and has worked in the care sector since she was 14. She went through several stations there. For the longest time and to this day she has worked in the intensive care unit of the Hospital of the Brothers of Mercy in Salzburg.

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