This week I was in beautiful Tyrol, specifically in time-out villages in the Lech Valley, which are called like that because you should take a break from the hustle and bustle of the world. Tourism doesn’t appear there as brutal architecture with an overwhelming character, if only because, as the locals explained to me, the terrain is simply too steep for large ski facilities.
Nevertheless, the change over time is also evident here: The Lech has almost dried up in places, and there is peace instead of ice over the peaks. Speaking of ice cream: ÖVP politician Toni Mattle, who would like to succeed Günther Platter as governor, eats, no, he likes to “spoon” the same thing out of the cup, as he did at the elephant round of the top candidates for the state elections. His punchline: A woman praised him that he eats ice cream “like a normal person”, which is obviously an advantage in his eyes and therefore an advantage in terms of election campaigns.
Mattle had told me the anecdote practically verbatim in a short interview – and while I was still puzzling over whether the fact that he can eat ice cream without accidents sets him apart from his competitors, his spokeswoman interrupted the conversation. Mattle should be talking to citizens rather than journalists. So, conveniently, I didn’t get to ask him about the complex and symptomatic issue with the Corona aid for the ÖVP Farmers’ Association.
The Tyrolean young farmers are practically a multiple personality
For those who have not noticed, the attempt at an – admittedly oversimplified – summary: The Tyrolean Young Farmers’ Association / rural youth is part of the Farmers’ Union and thus the ÖVP, but at the same time, according to the statute, organizationally linked to the Chamber of Agriculture, which – theoretically – is non-partisan should be, but not only in Tyrol, so to speak, belongs to the ÖVP.
The young peasantry is, so to speak, a multiple personality. According to its own statements, it is by no means a party organization. Because they would not have been entitled to money from a pot for non-profit organizations. When it came to a lot of money from this state Corona aid fund, the rural youth let it be known that they hardly knew the ÖVP at all and consisted of a large number of non-profit associations; 120 of these therefore received more than 800,000 euros. They should now be paid back. The decision from Vienna came just ten days before the election, which in turn ÖVP governor Platter sees as a nasty attack by the green vice chancellor, whose ministry is responsible for payment, testing and recovery.
To Mattle’s salvation, it must be said that he did not participate in the collective Tyrolean outburst. What also has to be said is that after eight decades in power, it is difficult to separate what is ÖVP and what is not. In the holiday village on the Lech, a retired community worker told me indignantly that it was a scandal that other parties were even publicly claiming the office of governor or even chancellor. “Yes, are they even allowed to do that?” he asked.
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