Innsbruck election

Uproar over FPÖ poster with “Problem Willi”

This poster has now turned into an election campaign stir.(Bild: Claus Meinert)

In the Innsbruck municipal election campaign, an FPÖ poster is causing a stir and displeasure among Mayor Georg Willi's Green Party. The poster reads: "There are many problems that need to be solved. One of them is Georg Willi."

The Greens spoke of "bottomless blue election posters" and many citizens expressed their outrage. The Freedom Party, however, stuck to its diction: "Every Innsbruck resident feels the 'Georg Willi problem' every day."

That does something to you and not just to me, but also to others and to the climate in the city.

Bürgermeister Georg Willi

"A party writes in huge letters on a poster that your person is a problem that needs to be solved. That does something to you and not just to me, but also to others and to the climate in the city," Willi said in a party statement about his emotional state. And he emphasized that he reserved the right to take legal action against the poster.

Willi: "More determined than ever against the FPÖ"
Many citizens and supporters had contacted him in the past few days or spoken to him on the street: "It simply goes too far for them, election campaign or not. Several people said they found the poster creepy." He is more determined than ever that the FPÖ should not be allowed to come to power. The diction of this party does not suit the cosmopolitan, colorful Innsbruck.

FPÖ: "Artificial excitement"
The Freedom Party, meanwhile, identified "artificial excitement". "Everyone knows that the 'Georg Willi problem' is synonymous with the ideology-driven green policies that are driving our city to ruin," said Deputy Mayor and mayoral candidate Markus Lassenberger, attacking the incumbent.

The "Georg Willi problem" stands for "fee increases in the middle of inflation, for inactivity as Innsbruck's municipal utility owners' representative, while energy costs are exploding and customers are being terminated. However, it also stands for "green ideology, driving over the top, seking drivers and producing traffic chaos as well as political exclusion".

"Double standards" as an accusation
And FPÖ provincial party chairman Markus Abwerzger also took issue with Willi. "Willi should not show a double-standard glass chin. That's pathetic," Abwerzger told APA. The Greens should "stop moaning" and applying double standards. After all, Willi had once described Lassenberger as a "state" that needed to be "rehabilitated" in the course of a planned motion to vote him out of office.