It remains exciting

Power struggle in the ÖVP – Now comes the showdown

A picture from better times: Döbling district leader Daniel Resch (ÖVP), ÖVP Vienna leader Karl Mahrer and local councillor Elisabeth Olischar(Bild: Wiener Volkspartei / OTS)

On Friday, the ÖVP Vienna committee meetings will be hotly contested. Can party leader and top candidate Karl Mahrer hold on or will he be toppled? The club leader is now fixed.

While the SPÖ and FPÖ have already presented their list of candidates for the elections on April 27, the ÖVP will do so on Friday. But in the middle of the election campaign, there was bad news for party leader and top candidate Karl Mahrer: he has been charged with embezzlement in connection with the Wienwert case.

An absolute disaster for the People's Party. But Mahrer is not thinking of withdrawing voluntarily - we reported. Nine weeks before the election, no one in the Black Party is discussing the content, only the battered image of the ex-policeman.

Despite the charges against him, ÖVP Vienna leader Karl Mahrer is still not thinking of resigning.(Bild: ÖVP Wien)

Club leader Markus Wölbitsch takes his hat off
Then the next surprise on Thursday. Farm instead of city hall will be the name of the game for club leader Markus Wölbitsch. He will no longer be standing in the election and is taking over the farm from his father. However, Wölbitsch emphasizes that his move has nothing to do with the spicy affair at the top of the party.

In Lichtenfelsgasse, however, the tension is rising. The party executive committee meets here first on Friday. The election proposal will be decided there and then approved by the party executive committee.

By then at the latest, it will be clear how much influence Walter Ruck, President of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, really has within the provincial party. In the background, he is said to be trying to install the relatively unknown Döbling district leader Daniel Resch as an alternative candidate. Neither of them could be reached by the "Krone". Whether the 41-year-old will really throw his hat into the ring nine weeks before the election is questionable. And so Mahrer could end up staying - due to the lack of alternative candidates.