SPÖ leader Andreas Babler has called on Linz Mayor Klaus Luger to resign from his party functions. Luger is actually resigning as chairman of the Linz SPÖ, but will remain mayor.
After the affair involving Linz Mayor Klaus Luger, in which there was no talk of resignation for almost two days, there was a shift in the SPÖ on Thursday afternoon. Party leader Andreas Babler did comment on the case that afternoon – and is now demanding Luger’s resignation in a statement made available to the “Presse”: “I call on Klaus Luger to resign from his position as party leader of the SPÖ Linz with immediate effect.” And if Luger does not want to go? Babler: “Otherwise I will initiate arbitration proceedings on this issue. His behavior is inexcusable.”
Babler “stood up for a new social democracy,” he says. “As federal party chairman, that means for me to demand clear consequences. In a social democracy under my leadership, such behavior has no place.” Babler is not calling for his resignation as mayor: This question “is within the competence of the local council,” he says in his statement.
This statement was probably agreed internally: The Upper Austrian regional party leader Michael Lindner spoke out shortly afterwards in the “Oberösterreichische Nachrichten”: Luger would indeed resign from all party functions, both sides had agreed to this at Lindner’s instigation. However, he would remain mayor of Linz.
Linz SPÖ expressed confidence in Luger
Luger admitted on Tuesday that in 2017 he had passed on “general questions about the hearing” for the position as artistic director of the Linz event company LIVA and the Brucknerhaus to the now-dismissed Dietmar Kerschbaum. Nevertheless, the city party expressed its “100 percent” trust in him on Wednesday.
In any case, Luger will not be attending the SPÖ’s election campaign kick-off with Babler in Linz next Thursday. As Upper Austria’s regional party leader Michael Lindner announced (before Babler’s statement was published), the mayor will be at the European Forum Alpbach. This was already clear when the date was set.
It is still unclear whether the matter will have criminal consequences. For Robert Kert, a criminal law expert at the University of Economics, the matter is “not so simple”. He believes it is unlikely that Luger’s actions could be an abuse of office, Kert told the “Presse”. The appointment of the Brucknerhaus director is not a matter of sovereign administration.
It is possible that the passing on of the hearing documents was a breach of official secrecy – if the documents were made available to Luger as part of his official duties. One approach to criminal prosecution would be the report commissioned by Luger on the passing on of the documents: “If there is a pointless report that was paid for by the city, that could be breach of trust.” However, Kert adds that he does not have the precise knowledge of the facts to make an accurate assessment. (kk/maf)
