Local council elections in Carinthia / Koroška: Success for the Slovenian minority

01.03.2021

More than 465,000 Carinthians were eligible to vote in the municipal council and mayoral elections on Sunday. This time, more than 105,000 voted on voting cards, more than ever before. Therefore, the final result in Villach / Beljak and Klagenfurt / Celovec is not expected until Monday evening, as reported by ORF.

The SPÖ remains the strongest party in Carinthia

According to the preliminary results, 39.2 percent of the people in Carinthia voted for the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), 27.5 percent for the People's Party (ÖVP), 14.2 percent for the Freedom Party (FPÖ), 2.1 percent for the Greens, Team Carinthia 1, 7 percent and other lists and movements received 14.8 percent of the vote. The turnout decreased slightly compared to the last election, this time with 73.81 percent of the electorate.

Great success for re-elected Mayor Sadovnik 

Bernard Sadovnik is again mayor of the Globasnitz / Globasnica municipality, and the Enotna Lista (EL) has achieved historic success in this municipality, as it was the first to achieve an absolute majority, namely eight seats on the municipal council. Bernard Sadovnik told RTV Slovenia correspondent Petra Kos Gnamuš: "I find it a great surprise that I received 65 percent of the vote. This is a confirmation of the hard work over the past six years." With that he defeated the rivals Manfred Slanitz and Simon Harrich. Sadovnik, also chairman of the AGSM member organization SKS, welcomed the participants of the seminar of the Slavic minorities in his community in 2019.

In Bad Eisenkappel / Železna Kapla, the current mayor, Franz Josef Smrtnik, has to go into the second round. In the second round Smrtnik will meet his opponent Elisabeth Lobnik from the Social Democrats (SPÖ). She received more votes than Smrtnik - 44.71 percent and the current mayor 43.48 percent. Smrtnik's "Kapelška lista" also lost a seat on the municipal council.

The EL was also successful in Ludmannsdorf / Bilčovs, where it won three seats on the municipal council, one more than in 2015.

Overall, the EL won one more mandate in the municipal councils than in the last election, and thus came to a total of 59 seats.

In Klagenfurt / Celovec, the mayor has to go to the second round

In any case, it is already known that there will be another confrontation in the Carinthian capital between the current mayor Maria-Luise Mathiaschitz from the ranks of the SPÖ and the former mayor of the Team Kärnten party, Christian Scheider.

More Info: https://volksgruppen.orf.at/slovenci/ and https://www.rtvslo.si/svet/evropa/v-globasnici-velik-uspeh-za-bernarda-sadovnika-in-enotno-listo/571217