The resigned General Secretary Laura Sachslehner sees the ÖVP as too soft in the coalition with the Greens.
Image: dpa
The General Secretary resigns and settles accounts, painful losses are threatened in state elections – and the spirit of Sebastian Kurz still hovers over the Austrian governing party.
In Austria, the chancellor party ÖVP is in turmoil. Under the impression of corruption allegations, but at the same time also of uncertainty in the population in view of various crises, approval for the Christian Democratic ruling party is falling. There is not much left of the former flights of fancy under Sebastian Kurz. As before the era of the ÖVP boss, who resigned in 2021, the party is bobbing in polls at the 20 percent mark, well behind the social democratic SPÖ. She even has to fear that the right-wing FPÖ will contest her second place. One is particularly concerned about the once impregnable ÖVP stronghold of Tyrol, where the state parliament will be elected in two weeks. Tensions erupted over the weekend when the young General Secretary Laura Sachslehner resigned after barely nine months in office, while singing dirty chants.
Sachslehner settled the accounts in three minutes, using words that FPÖ boss Herbert Kickl could hardly have formulated more sharply. The People’s Party is giving up its values, the 28-year-old Viennese complained. The party is leaving the path it has stood for so far, with which it has won elections and convinced people. She was too soft in the “turquoise-green” coalition. “Curdling up and avoiding conflicts is definitely the wrong way to go.” Of course, this primarily affected Karl Nehammer, the chancellor and “chairman” of the ÖVP, who was unspokenly confronted with his predecessor Kurz.
