After two postponements due to corona, Vienna’s Mayor Michael Ludwig stood for re-election at the state party conference on Saturday.
The state party leader of the Viennese SPÖ, Mayor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ), was re-elected on Saturday with 94.4 percent. A total of 875 delegates took part in the voting at Messe Wien. Ludwig has been head of the Vienna Reds since 2018.
At the last party congress to date in 2019, he got 90.8 percent. Since then there has been no more meeting. The corona pandemic caused the party congress, originally scheduled for 2019, to be postponed twice.
Rely on the “Wiener Weg”.
In his speech on Saturday morning, Ludwig announced that he wanted to continue to follow the “Viennese way”. This applies both to pandemic management and to areas such as housing, education, inflation and transport, he said. After two postponements due to corona, he appeared in front of around 1000 delegates at the major red event.
“The pandemic is not over,” Ludwig began his speech – accordingly, the party congress also relied on the 2.5G rule and the obligation to wear masks away from the square. He defended the stricter corona measures in Vienna, including the obligation to wear a mask on public transport. “You don’t have to go to the disco, but most people have to use public transport.”
For the forthcoming collective bargaining negotiations, Ludwig called for a significant wage increase: “It has to ring the bell… no, that’s not enough: it has to rustle.” The high inflation must be compensated. Employers could not come here with reference to a wage-price spiral. “The spiral does not turn because of high wages, but because of high prices.”
In the field of education, Ludwig emphasized the non-contributory kindergarten and the non-contributory all-day school. He also announced the construction of a new central vocational school in the city on the Danube. In residential construction, a way will be found to create affordable living space despite rising property prices and construction costs – even with existing properties. For this purpose, the location surcharge for the benchmark rents is to be brought before the Constitutional Court.
Ludwig wants to keep the 365-euro annual ticket for Wiener Linien in the future – but new roads will also be needed, he addressed one of the main conflict issues. The mayor defended both the Lobau tunnel and the city road: projects such as the Danube crossing as a bridge over the Lobau were rejected – but with the tunnel running 60 meters under the Lobau, one can now say with a clear conscience that this will not be affected. The project would relieve the south-east tangent and the surrounding districts of trucks that are leaving in the event of a traffic jam.
“Is that concrete politics?” Ludwig asked rhetorically. He is committed to one when it comes to creating jobs, building apartments or kindergartens and schools. “You’ll need concrete for that.” If you don’t build, people would move out of the city and then commute back in to work.
(APA)
–
