2023-10-23 06:14:27
The ruling South Tyrolean People’s Party (SVP) suffered a significant defeat in the state elections. According to the preliminary official final result of 41.9 percent in the 2018 election, the party of top candidate and LH Arno Kompatscher fell by 7.4 percentage points to 34.5 percent – a new low. The SVP loses two mandates and will in future have 13 of the 35 mandates in the South Tyrolean state parliament. At least a three-party coalition is therefore likely to flourish.
Forming a government will probably be very difficult, as Italy’s Transport Minister Matteo Salvini’s SVP coalition partner Lega also lost significantly and only got 3 percent (2018: 11.1 percent). The Lega will only be represented in the state parliament with one seat instead of the previous four. Kompatscher therefore needs two more coalition partners in order to achieve a state parliament majority or at least a German-speaking partner. A scenario that the SVP always wanted to prevent as much as possible.
The state governor, who was a candidate for the last time, should be able to hold on despite the crash. He and the party leaders had recently expected a result of this magnitude. In addition, there was no complete crash to around 30 percent. The significant decline in votes for the collective party was also reflected in the preferential votes, which are very important in South Tyrol. Kompatscher lost around 9,500 preferential votes and was “only” able to get 58,771. The preferred votes of SVP party chairman Philipp Achammer were even halved to 16,812 (2018: 33,288 votes). Meanwhile, a well-known name attracted attention in the preferential votes: SVP candidate Hubert Messner – brother of mountaineering legend Reinhold Messner – achieved the second-best result behind Kompatscher with 30,605 preferential votes.
In an initial statement on Monday morning, Kompatscher saw the preferential vote result as a “clear mandate” and wants to remain in office. However, the state governor and Achammer admitted a “painful loss” in the SVP result and attributed this, among other things, to the “international situation”. When it comes to coalitions, Kompatscher didn’t want to look at his cards yet; the situation was anything but easy, he said. When asked whether party chairman Achammer would be able to hold on, he told journalists that this would be up to the party to decide.
Team K took second place behind the SVP following their surprise success in the last election. The group landed at 11.1 percent and four mandates – following 15.2 percent in 2018. One of the clear winners of this election is the opposition party South Tyrolean Freedom with top candidate Sven Knoll. It came in third place with 10.9 percent (2018: 6 percent), meaning it has four mandates instead of the previous two.
The Greens also succeeded. They achieved 9 percent (2018: 6.8 percent) and were able to retain their three mandates. The right-wing Fratelli D’Italia (Brothers of Italy) of Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who won 6 percent of the vote in South Tyrol (2018: 1.7 percent) and won two mandates, were able to make significant gains.
The “JWA” list by corona measures critic and former rifle commander Jürgen Wirth Anderlan achieved considerable success. It immediately got 5.9 percent (two mandates). However, the performance of the South Tyrolean Freedom Party was disappointing at 4.9 percent. In 2018 they reached 6.2 percent. However, the party will continue to be represented in the state parliament with two seats.
The social democratic Partito Democratico achieved 3.5 percent. 0.3 percentage points less than in 2018, but she is still guaranteed a mandate. The Movimento 5 Stelle will no longer be represented in the state parliament; the Italian-speaking party lost its seat.
The performance of the list “For South Tyrol with Widmann” by ex-SVP regional councilor Thomas Widmann was sobering: the former party veteran and Kompatscher opponent collected 3.4 percent and thus a state parliament seat with his list. The parties La Civica and Vita also entered the state parliament with one mandate each.
This time, voter turnout was 71.5 percent, lower than in the 2018 state election. At that time, 73.9 percent of those eligible to vote went to the polls.
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