Further excitement about election campaign costs! After SP club chairman Stefan Giegler in the “Krone” described the move by VP city vice-president Bernhard Baier to limit the election campaign expenditure to 500,000 euros as a “cheap party maneuver”, the latter does not want to let it stand and shoots back.
Above all, the statement by Giegler that his party (SPÖ Linz) had rejected a similar proposal from the Greens in November, especially at the request of the ÖVP, amused Baier: the SPÖ had rejected based on our opinion, that would be the first. At the time, we only pointed out that we doubted whether a regulation at community level would be legally tenable. With the exception of Vienna, there is no such construct in any federal state. “
The savings request did not find a majority
Review: The Greens had demanded that the state limit election campaign costs at the municipal level, based on the economical model of other federal states. About a graduation according to the size of the community. That would have meant that municipal council and mayoral elections in Linz should not exceed a budget of around € 200,000. But the motion for a resolution did not find a majority.
Loophole for billing
Baier’s approach that there would be no binding regulation anywhere except in Vienna is correct. However, he does not mention that Upper Austria – with the exception of Vienna – is also the only federal state in which state and local council elections take place on one day. According to party finance experts, this is a loophole because election events that are not only used for state elections can be billed at the municipal level – without restriction.