"Questionable action"

Hospital dispute: Tough SPÖ response to threat of legal action

(Bild: Attila Molnar)

The red party does not want to be "intimidated" by the Lower Austrian health agency - and even goes one better.

Because SPÖ leader Sven Hergovich and the red national councillor Rudolf Silvan had recently criticized the state health agency in public, the state-owned company retaliated with a lawsuit for "credit-damaging" statements - we reported.

But the reply followed hot on the heels. And party manager Wolfgang Zwander shows no sign of restraint: "The SPÖ is on the side of the patients, we will not be intimidated by the ÖVP liaison officers in the LGA." Zwander once again questions why Konrad Kogler, a state police director, was appointed health manager by a former interior minister (state minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner, note): "That's not normal!"

Taxpayers' money is being used to take action against disagreeable political opponents, which is shameful even by ÖVP standards!

Wolfgang Zwander, Landesgeschäftsführer SPÖ Niederösterreich

According to Zwander, the SPÖ has been uncovering shortcomings in the healthcare system for months. But instead of improving things, "Lower Austrians' tax money is being wasted" when a state-owned company drags the Social Democratic top candidate before the judge shortly before the election. Zwander sees this as a "highly questionable action in terms of democratic policy".