The VP therefore lost 12.1 percentage points to 25.6 percent, while the CP increased to 29.3 percent (plus 8.9 points). This means that the term of office of VP Mayor Siegfried Nagl comes to an end after 18 years, Elke Kahr will probably be the first female mayor of a state capital.
According to the extrapolation including voting card forecast, the Greens land in third place with a full plus of 6.5 percentage points compared to the last election in 2017 and thus 17.0 percent. Behind them, at 5 p.m., was the FP with 10.9 percent (minus 4.9), just ahead of the SP with 9.8 percent (minus 0.3). NEOS came to 5.1 percent (plus 1.1).
The preliminary final result is expected around 7 p.m., but the voting cards in Graz will not be evaluated until Monday.
berraschende Sensation
The Graz party leader Elke Kahr has achieved a success that she probably would not even have thought possible herself. Before the election, Kahr had said that if Robert Krotzer’s second, weakly secured city council mandate could not be kept, then go and hand it over to Krotzer. There is no longer any talk of this – no one in Graz had expected such a sensation and the surveys hadn’t revealed that either.
Kahr and her fellow campaigners have once again authentically positioned themselves to a party of the “common people”, which is also attractive to change voters – apparently even more than that. Kahr could become the first female communist mayor of Graz – probably a satisfaction.
In 2012, Kahr had already succeeded in stepping out of the shadow of the former city party leader Kaltenegger, who had become known beyond Austria, and in following the sensational result of 2003 – with the characteristics that are now widely known and typical for the Graz and Styrian communists: understandable social commitment, hard work , Modesty, donating part of one’s own salary for good causes (“Open Accounts Day” always on December 28th of each year, note) and years of persistence in certain topics such as the social card or bond fund.
As Kaltenegger’s successor, Kahr first had to cope with a fall from 20.8 to 11.2 percent in 2008, which resulted in the loss of six mandates and one seat in the city senate. In 2012 it was different again: The KP increased again by 8.68 percentage points and with 19.86 percent almost reached the result of 2003, with a city senate seat and ten community members – and second place ahead of the SP, which has steadily lost since then.
The head of the KP in Graz is considered to be of integrity, relaxed, committed and competent in social and housing issues. Finally, efforts to improve the traffic situation in Graz have been added – the election campaign was teeming with proposals from the parties regarding the promotion of roads and S-Bahn, even underground construction is up for grabs, favored by the city’s VP. The residential department, on the other hand, had been a KP domain for decades and was part of the core competence. In 2017, the new VP-FP coalition came up with the idea of swapping: Mario Eustacchio (FP) took over the housing department, Kahr was assigned “his” transport department for this – probably in the hope of disenchanting the communist. In view of the election success, however, the chalk did not work out. In any case, Kahr was not deterred and continued to advise tenants. Her transport department – relieved of a few agendas by the town hall coalition – ran her as it came under the circumstances.
Kahr usually lets criticism roll off with a friendly smile and calmly – there had been enough of that in the past few years. The rejection of the Puntigam power plant in the Mur, which has now been built, triggered the failure of the budget talks in October 2016 and with it the re-election at the beginning of February 2017.
Kahr from Graz (born November 2nd, 1961), who was adopted at the age of three, was employed as a secretary in the Kontrollbank, attended the evening trade academy on the side and has been a party member for almost 30 years. The Graz native has been living in a partnership with the former KP state party chairman Franz-Stephan Parteder since 1988 and has an adult son. Kahr moved into the local council in 1993, and in 1998 she took over the management of the KP-Klub. From 2003 to 2004 she held the post of deputy federal chairman of the Communist Party.
