TIROLER TAGESZEITUNG "Leading article" edition from Wednesday, November 22, 2023, by Peter Nindler: "Government again with old postal haggling"

2023-11-21 23:00:11

Innsbruck (OTS) – The long shadow of the affair surrounding ex-state councilor Hannes Tratter (VP) is catching up with the ÖVP and SPÖ. The black-red state government is still trying to ride it out, but it cannot shake off the fall from grace.

With the Tratter case, the black-red state government has gambled away a lot at the altar of political credibility in recent months. The former ÖVP state councilor was ultimately granted privileges that are difficult to argue away. Because the 18 weeks of relaxation vacation as a returned state civil servant while at the same time intensively exercising a mandate in the state parliament are great. As was his appointment as managing director of the non-profit building company Neue Heimat. This all looks like a clearly orchestrated plan to make Tratter’s dismantling easier. Especially since there was no longer any room for the former long-term state councilor in the new state government.
Rarely has a former politician fallen as softly as Tratter. Despite being out of service as a civil servant for ten years, he was still able to acquire vacation entitlements on the government bench, which the State Audit Office has raised serious legal doubts about and criticized. It fits into this picture of obvious favoritism for a long-time ÖVP politician that there is not even any written documentation for his immediate start on vacation from the end of October 2022 to the beginning of March 2024. As if everything had been agreed upon and Tratter just wanted to say: I’m off now.
From the human resources manager to the state office director to the political personnel officer and state governor Anton Mattle (ÖVP), everyone was watching. Not only that: they still hold their protective hands over this approach. Ultimately, Tratter was rewarded with the position of managing director at the state-owned Neue Heimat because of his “expertise, experience and an excellent network in all Tyrolean communities”. The state lends him there so that Hannes Tratter can retain his civil service privileges.
So this is how Tyrol works under the new black-red state government. But it shouldn’t be like that at all. Privileges and haggling for positions increase the loss of trust in politics. And the ÖVP and SPÖ are still surprised that they are losing their voters and migrating to protest parties. This certainly has nothing to do with new government. Rather with the old style of politics and backroom machinations.
Anton Mattle and his deputy Georg Dornauer (SPÖ) have been trying to shake off the Tratter affair for months. But they have long since been shaken up massively politically. Because if something lies, it pecks.