Greens remain excluded from the polls in Mutters
Due to a formal error, the Greens are not allowed to run. The party locates arbitrariness and wants to prepare an election challenge before the Constitutional Court.
The exclusion of the Greens from the local council elections on February 27 in the Tyrolean community of Mutters (district of Innsbruck-Land) due to a formal error has been resolved. The municipal electoral authority will not change its decision. This decision will be made on Wednesday evening, confirmed Mayor Hansjörg Peer to the “Tiroler Tageszeitung” (Thursday edition). The Greens speak of arbitrariness and want to prepare an election challenge before the Constitutional Court (VfGH).
The electoral authorities “saw no reason” to revise the decision from the previous week, explained Peer: “The list remains excluded”. Due to an amendment to the Tyrolean Municipal Electoral Code (TGWO), this year for the first time an abbreviation must also be included when submitting the campaign lists for municipal elections. However, because the “Green and Independent Mothers” list had only inserted a hyphen in this field, the party with mayoral candidate Lisa Kundwald was excluded from the election.
“Anything but expedient in terms of democratic policy”
Municipal adviser Johannes Tratter (ÖVP) had previously been skeptical that the decision of the municipal election authority had to be corrected again. Tratter initiated an investigation into the case and the drafting of an amendment to the law. The legal foundations are clear, as is the fact that the Greens had made a mistake, he noted.
The provincial council recalled that the municipal department had pointed out this change – also requested by the Greens – on several occasions. They acted correctly. Nevertheless, he wanted to have the case investigated. As a result, the sanction with the exclusion from voting, because the abbreviation was not given, was “anything but expedient in terms of democratic policy,” Tratter argued on Monday. For him it was clear that the defect that could not be remedied would become one that could be remedied.
The state green places on Thursday, however, a “democratically more than questionable conclusion”. Mayor Peer’s strict observance of the electoral regulations “sounds like sheer mockery”. Because the remarks mentioned in the Tyrolean municipal election regulations make it clear “that a hyphen as an abbreviation according to the legal text is impeccable, so it does not even allow any other option,” argued state parliament vice president Stephanie Jicha. With the hyphen inserted by the Greens in Mutters, the individual filling in of the field was “curious, but done correctly”. “A short name should not be decisive for the start of a list. We will also cite it in the challenge,” announced Jicha.
(APA)