When we arrived at the media center in the Ursulinenhof before the first extrapolation, we didn’t really know where to go. The MFG team made up for this brief uncertainty with the first official figures. There was loud cheering, party manager Gerhard Pöttler shouted several times that MFG had now “made history”: “This is historic!”
The party was founded in February; top candidate Joachim Aigner has only been state party leader of Upper Austria since July. At this point in time, it was not to be expected that one would come to the state parliament from a standing start. But for about three weeks you could have felt that it could be done, says Dagmar Häusler, second in the list: “The response from the population was enormous.” Every day you were out and about, talked to people and heard their concerns. Häusler also sees this as MFG’s recipe for success: “We are directly with the people. And we can admit that we are not perfect.” Häusler is convinced that this is also a difference to the other parties: “We are authentic.” What it means to be represented in the state parliament is to be approached, said the mother of two.
You have a strong team in the background, be motivated and pragmatic: “There will certainly be topics that I’m not interested in and that I really have to dig into.” Top candidate Aigner completed all media appointments with a big smile and never tired of emphasizing that the topic was not just about vaccination criticism. Because the people who were at MFG events and feel addressed by the party are “people like you and me, with financial worries, with a fear of losing their education”.
The school theme has been firmly attached to the flag, as also the third party list Manuel Krautgartner and Häusler explain. “Education close to nature” is important, no media overload of stimuli. Regarding home schooling, Aigner and Häusler are politically and diplomatically independent of each other: “That is the decision of the parents. In Austria there is no compulsory schooling.”
“Be annoying, question everything”
In addition, they want to take care of the concerns of small, medium and one-person companies. Questions about Corona are answered diplomatically. You are not an anti-vaccination party, but the decision to get vaccinated should be left to everyone. One is not fundamentally against 3G, but against measures that exclude people from social life. The MFG team had provided the 3-G proof required to enter the media center.
And what do you do with the result and the three state parliament mandates? “Being annoying, questioning everything”, Pöttler indicated the direction. And: Upper Austria, that’s just the beginning.
