2023-06-19 20:35:05
Mario Leiter will lead the SPÖ Vorarlberg in the future. The extended party executive designated the Bludenz city police commander on Monday evening in Götzis (Feldkirch district) with 86.48 percent as the new state party chairman. The 57-year-old will follow interim boss Gabi Sprickler-Falschlunger, the party confirmed following the end of the meeting. The official presentation will take place on Tuesday, and the leader will be elected at a party conference in spring 2024.
According to the SPÖ, of the 37 present, 32 voted for the leader on Monday, who should now also lead the Vorarlberg comrades as the top candidate in the 2024 state elections. According to one participant, the discussion prior to his nomination was “objective and in a good mood”. Leiter was very happy regarding his election and received a lot of applause. The former deputy mayor of Bludenz currently has no political function.
The Social Democrats are hoping for success from the new party leader in the 2024 state elections, because in 2019 the SPÖ in Vorarlberg remained at a low once more with 9.5 percent voter approval. Leiter is considered a good election campaigner and can deal with defeats: he has already fought twice in local politics in tough battles with the respective ÖVP candidates, both times he was only narrowly defeated. He then resigned from his position as vice mayor in spring 2021 to become commander of the Bludenz city police.
In the past few weeks and months, there have been increasing signals from the party in the direction of the leader, even if initially nobody wanted to confirm this. In the past he was repeatedly discussed as head of the SPÖ, but then didn’t get the chance or waved it off himself. The preferred candidate is not a leader this time either, as the party leader Sprickler-Falschlunger, who had taken over the leadership following internal party quarrels, wanted a woman to be the leader.
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