First candidates fixed

State election: Bitschi leads district lists

With Manfred Vogt (Übersaxen), Markus Klien (Hohenems) and Martin Fitz (Lustenau), three new faces should enter the state parliament for the Freedom Party. Nicole Feurstein-Hosp has to fear for her mandate, but is fighting for it. 

After the ÖVP, the Freedom Party is now also drawing up its lists for the state parliamentary elections. As expected, FPÖ provincial chairman Christof Bitschi will enter the race as the top candidate. He also leads the lists in the districts of Feldkirch and Dornbirn.

Montfort town strongly represented
Second place in the Feldkirch district was secured by Daniel Allgäuer, a long-standing member of the state parliament and former club chairman. Feldkirch's Deputy Mayor and Member of Parliament Andrea Kerbleder was ranked in 3rd place. Manfred Vogt, mayor of Übersaxen, follows behind the current members of the provincial parliament and also has the best chance of entering the provincial parliament. Michael Koschat, local councillor in Satteins, and Gerhard Wieser, local councillor in Göfis, are running behind Vogt.

Markus Klien, city councillor in Hohenems, and Martin Fitz from Lustenau should also have the mandate firmly in their pockets with 2nd and 3rd place on the Dornbirn district list. Dornbirn city councillor Christoph Waibel, who was already a member of the state parliament from 2014 to 2019, was elected to fourth place on the list. He is followed by Milina Kloiber, city councillor in Hohenems, and Nicole Feurstein-Hosp.

The latter is of course anything but happy with 6th place. "But it was a democratic and fair process in which the Lustenau local group decided to send Martin Fitz into the race ahead of me," she told the "Krone" newspaper. After taking the Dornbirn and Hohenems local groups into account, the 41-year-old was left with a thankless sixth place.

 Preferential votes as an opportunity
"But that's no reason to bury our heads in the sand," Feurstein-Hosp said combatively, relying on the preferential votes. A man from Lustenau already proved in 2019 how quickly you can leave your party's own competitors from Dornbirn and Hohenems behind in this way: ÖVP MP Patrick Wiedl also started from 6th place, overtook Karin Feurstein-Pichler and Arno Gächter and secured the mandate.