Regional elections in Austria: “Graznost” in Styria

In the municipal council elections in Graz, the Communist Party unexpectedly captured the town hall. The ÖVP was voted out of office after 18 years. “Graznost” has already been mentioned.

First place for the Communist Party of Austria, the KPÖ, in the municipal elections of the state capital of Styria – that evokes a mixed response from the people of Graz. “I find it shocking,” says one woman. One man says: “I think it depends less on the party itself than on the personalities who are increasingly playing a bigger role.” Another woman says: “I’m excited to see how it goes from here.”

ÖVP voted out of office after 18 years

So far, the conservative people’s party ÖVP has been the dominant force in Graz. She and her mayor Siegfried Nagl, who had been in office for 18 years, were voted out of office. Nagl had initiated countless real estate projects. A large part of the new apartments was more likely to benefit investors than tenants, criticized political opponents. They called Nagl “Beton-Siegi”.

The KPÖ election winner, Elke Kahr, is considered down-to-earth, knowledgeable, reliable and has been active in local politics for almost three decades. The KPÖ politician attributes the fact that almost a third of the population of Graz has expressed their trust in her, among other things, to her course in social policy.

“What is important: that you pay particular attention to those who simply have a harder time – regardless of whether they are working or looking for work, whether they are older or younger people,” Kahr told ORF. Nobody should be excluded from that. “And I absolutely stand for a worldview and a society that unites and does not divide.”

KPÖ is considered to be a local political entity

The KPÖ has been an integral part of the city council of Graz for decades. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that the party focused very early on on a major issue that has now become very relevant for almost all sections of the population: rental and housing policy. Since 1992 the KPÖ has been operating the so-called “tenant emergency number” in Graz – for questions about rent increases, operating cost accounts, termination and eviction suits. In addition, the KPÖ has long been represented on the city council. Because there is no minimum percentage threshold for entering the city parliament in municipal elections.

Political expert Thomas Hofer sees this combination as an explanation for the electoral success of the communists: “The KPÖ in Graz has not only been very authentic and very credible on the subject of social policy since yesterday,” he told ORF. “That means there are also a lot of middle-class people – I’m from Styria myself, I know a lot of middle-class people – who have announced recently that they will now vote for the KPÖ.”

All inner city districts to the KPÖ

In fact, all of Graz’s inner city districts went to the KPÖ. The party penetrated deeply into the so-called bourgeois camp. Obviously, the annoyance about the housing policy of the mayor who had been voted out of office, which many Grazers perceived as excessive, was too great.

In any case, Elke Kahr is preparing to become not only the first female KPÖ mayor of Graz – but also the first woman in the town hall of the Styrian capital.