SPÖ Proposal Fails

73 Percent Demand: Babler Should Step Down as Minister

Andreas Babler wants to remain a minister, but 73 percent of those surveyed are against it.(Bild: APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH)

The “solution” to the leadership crisis in the SPÖ is met with widespread skepticism, as evidenced by a new “Krone” poll. Nearly three-quarters want current party leader Andreas Babler to step down entirely. In addition to new leadership, they say, the party needs a new policy direction—and less infighting. 

Around 10 p.m. a week and a day ago, something resembling white smoke rose above the Steigenberger Hotel in Vienna. At the conclave regarding the SPÖ leadership, an agreement had been reached on a “personnel process.”

Instead of presenting a new vice chancellor and party leader to replace Andreas Babler, they granted him a grace period, appointing parliamentary group leader Philip Kucher and Minister for Women’s Affairs Eva-Maria Holzleitner as two executive “overseers” and Finance Minister Markus Marterbauer—who is still battling cancer—as his successor as vice chancellor. Was this a stopgap measure or the fresh start the SPÖ now needed?

Not a fresh start: According to a survey by the Institute for Public Opinion Research and Data Analysis (IFDD) commissioned by the “Krone,” only four percent see this as a fresh start. Eighty percent consider the “solution” unsuitable, and 66 percent view the dual leadership structure centered on Babler as “not a good solution” (see chart).

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/stock.adobe.com, APA)

Majority in favor of a genuine step back: Babler , who—depending on Marterbauer’s recovery—will hand over his office as Vice Chancellor to Marterbauer “in the spring,” intends to remain at least Minister of Media afterward. But 73 percent of those surveyed do not want that.

More unity: Rather, the SPÖ needs a realignment in terms of personnel and policy, as well as greater unity.

“Citizens have little patience for political infighting,” summarizes IFDD Director Christoph Haselmayer. There is at least one thing, however, that those surveyed do credit Babler with: 47 percent believe that he came out on top in the party showdown rather than the state party leaders who were trying to oust him (36 percent) ...