The polling stations opened at 7:30 a.m. You can vote until 4 p.m. 100,564 people eligible to vote were called upon to exercise their right to vote – 20,788 of them EU citizens.
The electoral authority should present the results between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sprinkling results are not published beforehand. As with the local council and mayoral direct election on April 14th, voting will take place in 154 districts and 43 polling stations.
10,598 voting cards were issued for the Innsbruck runoff election. That was 4,240 fewer than for the first round. Possibly a first indication of voter turnout. This might be lower than in the local council election. On April 14th there was a significant increase compared to the 2018 local council election – participation rose from an extremely low 50.38 percent to 60.5 percent.
In the first round, Willi was ahead with 22.89 percent, Anzengruber got 19.37 percent. FPÖ mayoral candidate Markus Lassenberger (15.92 percent) and SPÖ frontwoman Elisabeth Mayr (15.21 percent) missed out on making it into the runoff, “das Neue Innsbruck” top candidate ex-ÖVP state secretary Florian Tursky (10.41 percent) finished distantly in fifth place.
Both opponents – Willi and Anzengruber – were relatively tame and harmonious in the last two weeks of the election campaign. And confident regarding their own chances of victory, even though both expected a close outcome. Only the coalition question and the attitude towards the FPÖ divided them a little.
Image: APA/WOLFGANG EDER
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Image: APA/WOLFGANG EDER
Willi, who wants to be a member of the city government even in the event of a defeat, has already vowed for himself and the city to form a center-left three-party coalition with Anzengruber and the Greens – the most likely option at the moment arithmetically and politically. He doesn’t want to work with the Freedom Party.
Anzengruber, on the other hand, did not want to commit himself and announced that he would hold talks with everyone if he won. Also with the FPÖ. Theoretically, a center-right four-party coalition consisting of “JA – Now Innsbruck”, FPÖ, “das Neue Innsbruck” and the Fritz list would also come into question, although the latter has ruled out this constellation – at least so far.
Overall, the Tyrolean state capital experienced a center-left slide in the first round. The Greens were also in first place in the list election with 18.87 percent and eight mandates, although they lost more than five percentage points compared to the last election. Anzengruber also came second here with his list when he first appeared: 16.83 percent and eight mandates were the result. The FPÖ came in behind with 15.21 percent and seven mandates (2018: 18.56 percent and eight mandates). The SPÖ came in fourth place with 13.58 percent and six mandates – which was a nice plus, because in the last election they had 10.32 percent and four mandates.
The performance of Tursky’s “The New Innsbruck” was also disappointing here. It was only enough for 10.15 percent and four mandates. The Fritz list ended up in the city parliament with 5.5 percent and two mandates (2018: 3.23 percent and one mandate).
The center-left slide was illustrated not only by the successes of the Greens and SPÖ, but also by the performance of left-wing “small parties”: the communists surprisingly made it into the local council and over the four percent hurdle with 6.72 percent and three mandates. The “ALI” list, a kind of former Green Party spin-off, narrowly made it into the local council once more with 4.83 percent and two mandates. At the last ballot there was only enough for one mandate.
