30 rooms in the town hall

City coalition in the footsteps of the Sun King

Vice-BM Georg Willi, BM Johannes Anzengruber, Vice-BM Elli Mayr (from left) in a good mood.(Bild: Birbaumer Johanna)

Johannes Anzengruber's YES mayoral list alone occupies 16 rooms in Innsbruck City Hall, the Greens nine and the SPÖ five. The entire opposition, five parties after all, has to make do with far fewer rooms. 

"Modesty is an ornament, but it's easier to live without it": this (grammatically slightly limping) proverb probably best describes the new room layout in Innsbruck's town hall: the YES list of Mayor Johannes Anzengruber alone claims 16 rooms in the town hall for itself, so in purely mathematical terms each YES councillor has two at their disposal.

30 rooms for 22 councillors
The Greens, the party with the most votes with eight mandates, have nine rooms, while the SPÖ with its six mandates has been allocated five. In total, the new coalition can therefore spread out over 30 rooms.

Remainder in six chambers
In comparison, the space available for the remaining five parties is very modest. One room was taken away from the FPÖ, which now has two. Well, it has also lost one seat on the municipal council (from 8 to 7). The once proud ÖVP (from 13 seats to 4) also has to make do with two chambers. Liste Fritz and ALI have to share one chamber, while the KPÖ has one for itself and its three councillors.

Incidentally, the "real" Sun King Louis XIV had 1300 rooms in his Palace of Versailles.

Still no government program
It's been six weeks since the municipal elections and just under four weeks since the run-off. What has happened in Innsbruck City Hall since then, apart from the room layout and the allocation of posts? Apparently not too much. The work program is still being worked on and the public will have to wait until next week to find out where the journey will take them.

Control committee reduced in size
At the swearing-in ceremony, Mayor Anzengruber repeatedly emphasized that he wanted to take everyone with him, as he could not work magic. However, another acid test was not passed: The increase in the size of the control committee from seven to nine members was rejected out of hand. Involving the small parliamentary groups would have improved transparency, at least that was the approach in the past period.