Fault lines before the election in Salzburg
The federal state is warming up for the election campaign: 2023 will be elected in Salzburg – as in three other federal states. Irritations in the three-party coalition were slowly being noticed. And there is one element of uncertainty: the MFG.
It is difficult to keep three partners as different as the ÖVP, the Greens and Neos on the same political line. But in Salzburg, the experiment of a three-party coalition, which Governor Wilfried Haslauer (ÖVP) negotiated after the 2018 election, survived the first four years quite well despite the pandemic and others. Differences of opinion rarely leaked out. But a year before the next state elections and with an ÖVP feeling anything but tailwind from the turbulence at federal level, the fault lines between the parties are becoming more visible. The signs are slowly pointing to elections in Salzburg – the ballot is expected to take place in May 2023. And the federal state is not alone: Lower Austria, Tyrol and Carinthia will also hold elections next year.
But back to Salzburg and the irritations in the coalition. Green leader and deputy governor Heinrich Schellhorn is usually very conciliatory and relaxed. In November last year, however, he contradicted Haslauer, who did not want a lockdown even in overburdened hospitals, and called for stricter measures. The partners rarely drive into the parade in such a public way. However, there are still different views on the expansion of the Europark shopping center – the Greens are on the brakes. In nature conservation, the Greens have a hard time shooting down otters or problem wolves, and a compromise has been found in tough struggles these days.