Tyrol’s head of state Platter announces surprising resignation – politics
Austria
Innsbruck (dpa). In Austria, one of the most influential figures of the conservatives surprisingly leaves the political stage. Tyrol’s Prime Minister Günther Platter (ÖVP) will retire after 14 years in office and 36 years in politics.
“Once is enough,” said the 68-year-old in Innsbruck. Platter proposed the Tyrolean Economics Minister Anton Mattle (ÖVP) as his successor. Mattle is also said to lead the party in the state elections, which are expected to be brought forward from 2023 to autumn 2022.
The ÖVP currently governs in Tyrol – just like in the federal government – with the Greens. With Platter, the ÖVP loses another popular top politician within a few days. At the beginning of June, the Prime Minister of Styria, 70-year-old Hermann Schützenhöfer, resigned for reasons of age.
The ÖVP is threatened with a double-digit crash
The move came without warning. Platter cited hostilities, including death threats, in connection with the Corona crisis as a minor reason for his withdrawal. “It’s a moving day, but it’s also a day of relief.” The ÖVP is in the Tyrol as well as in the federal government in a survey low. While Platter received almost 45 percent of the vote in his last election, a double-digit crash is now imminent. “Platter no longer wanted to pick up this defeat,” said political advisor Thomas Hofer of the German Press Agency.
The head of state was in the international limelight, especially at the beginning of the Corona crisis in spring 2020, when the crisis management in the Tyrolean ski resort of Ischgl was massively criticized. After the first infections became known, thousands of tourists had fled the community and thus spread the virus. However, Platter saw the responsibility for the departure chaos more at the federal level than at the state. He will never forget March 13, 2020, when he declared, in view of the dramatic development, “the winter season is over.”
Target finances of the party
Platter’s withdrawal is another sign that the ÖVP is not coming to rest. In addition to weak poll numbers and investigations by the public prosecutor’s office again against ex-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, the party’s finances are now being targeted. In an unusual step, the Court of Auditors has the ÖVP’s 2019 election campaign expenses examined by auditors. It is unlikely that the ÖVP actually only spent the 5.6 million euros it indicated for the elections to the National Council, it said last week. The Court of Auditors’ report alarmed the co-governing Greens, who described the process as “devastating”. Chancellor and ÖVP leader Karl Nehammer, ÖVP General Secretary at the time, said the party had nothing to hide.
Platter denied that his move had anything to do with sentiment at the federal level. The turmoil comes at a critical time. After Tyrol, there will also be state elections in Salzburg, Lower Austria and Carinthia in 2023. In view of the ongoing allegations of corruption, the high inflation fueled by the Ukraine war and the consequences of the pandemic, a “highly toxic story” is emerging, says Hofer. “The impacts in the ÖVP system are coming closer.”
© dpa-infocom, dpa:220613-99-647511/3