New election after deselection

Four-way battle for the mayor’s seat in Kirchdorf

The people of Kirchdorf are called to vote on Sunday.(Bild: Wolfgang Spitzbart .)

On Sunday, the 5,000-inhabitant municipality of Kirchdorf will elect a new mayor. All four municipal council parties are sending candidates into the race, making a run-off election very likely. The new election was necessitated by the dismissal of the former mayor.

High tension in Kirchdorf: on Sunday, the municipality in the Traunviertel will elect a new mayor. All municipal council parties are sending candidates into the race: Markus Ringhofer is running for the SPÖ, Elisabeth Goppold for the ÖVP. The Green candidate is Judith Oberdammer, while Christoph Colak is running for the FPÖ.

Voting closes at 3 pm on Sunday. However, the four-way contest makes a decision in the first ballot unlikely, so a run-off election two weeks later is a foregone conclusion.

Former mayor voted out
The fact that a new election has to be held at all is due to the deselection of former mayor Vera Pramberger (SPÖ). After years of conflict in the course of a budget dispute, the other parliamentary groups rejected her suitability and initiated a vote of no confidence. 59 percent voted to vote Pramberger out of office.

In the last regular election in 2021, the former SPÖ leader won by a wafer-thin margin against ÖVP candidate Alexander Hauser: She was elected to office by a margin of just three votes (966 to 963).

Second ballot after National Council election
The decision in Kirchdorf is the second election in Upper Austria after the National Council elections at the end of September. The first election in Goldwörth was surprisingly won by FPÖ candidate Thomas Prihoda, who has since become mayor of the former ÖVP stronghold.