Vorarlberg residents have elected mayors and municipal councilors – Vorarlberg municipal council elections –

In two weeks, however, there will be runoff elections for the mayor’s office in some cities and municipalities. It will be exciting again in Bregenz, Bludenz, Feldkirch, Hard, in the noble ski resort of Arlberg Lech and in Lochau near Bregenz.

In Bregenz, the state capital of Vorarlberg, there is a political runoff match between Mayor Markus Linhart (ÖVP) and SPÖ Councilor Michael Ritsch. Sunday was enough for Linhart with 43.21 percent of the vote, Ritsch got 34.49 percent. The ÖVP lost ground in the city council election, but it remained clearly the strongest force before the SPÖ. In the mayor’s decision in two weeks, Linhart has an 893 vote lead (4,425 to 3,532 votes; 8.72 percentage points difference).

Black against red: that will be the duel at Bludenz in two weeks. Unsurprisingly, the struggling southern city of Vorarlberg will have a runoff between ÖVP career changer Simon Tschann and Social Democrat Mario Leiter, who is making his second bid to become mayor. Simon Tschann should have a head start on September 27: his ÖVP increased significantly to 45.86 percent and 16 terms (2015: 40.51 percent, 14 terms). For the newcomer to politics as mayor, 2,975 voters, or 46.98 percent, voted on the first ballot. The SPÖ’s mayoral candidate leader won 43.88 percent approval (2,779 votes) but only 196 votes behind him and was therefore not out of the running. The SPÖ achieved a vote of 38.99 percent, that is 14 seats, and therefore increased slightly (2015: 37.76 percent, 13 seats).

Vorarlberg’s SPÖ state party chairman Martin Staudinger surprisingly won the direct mayoral election in his hometown of Hard on Lake Constance. With 35.40 percent of the vote, he was ahead of incumbent Eva Maria Mair (ÖVP, 32.79 percent) and Eva Hammerer (Greens, 19.27 percent). This leads to a runoff between Staudinger and Mair. If Staudinger is two weeks early, he will resign his presidency in the SPÖ state. He explained it in the run-up to the municipal council and mayor elections. On Sunday he was overwhelmed by an initial reaction. His expectations were “exceeded several times,” he said.

Election Sunday was not a good day for the ÖVP in Feldkirch this time. He lost more than seven percentage points and only obtained 40.47 percent of the votes (2015: 47.82), three seats less. Also, starter Wolfgang Matt has to go into the second round against FPÖ challenger Daniel Allgäuer. Matt had taken over the city tour from his predecessor and party colleague Wilfried Berchtold just over a year ago. When he first ran for mayor, only 41.42 percent of voters trusted him, while Berchtold won a clear 52.79 percent in direct elections in Feldkirch in 2015.

In Lochau there is a decision between starter Michael Simma (ÖVP) and Frank Matt of the Greens. Simma got 47.36 percent of the vote Sunday, Matt got 40.38 percent. The Greens have never won a mayor’s seat in Vorarlberg.

In Lech there is a runoff between incumbent Ludwig Muxel and Stefan Jochum, the community registrar. In Sunday’s direct elections, Jochum outscored the former head of the Muxel municipality by more than twelve percentage points. Muxel, who has been mayor since April 1993, received 369 votes (35.45 percent) in the direct mayoral election, while 496 voters (47.65 percent) voted for Jochum. In the municipal council election, however, the “Lech List” around Ludwig Muxel with 443 votes (42.19 percent) was almost twelve percentage points ahead of the “Our Village” list around Jochum (319 votes, 30.38 percent).

As expected, incumbent Dieter Egger (FPÖ) achieved a sure electoral victory in Hohenems. He reached 63.45 percent (2015: 45.34 percent or 55.75 percent in the second round), his party received 44.18 percent in the municipal council election, a gain of 1.87 points percentage. The ÖVP was far from being able to recover the blue bastion: the Popular Party lost again strongly.

The only freely governed city in Vorarlberg, which was colored from black to blue in 2015, remains under the rule of the FPÖ. It now has 17 of the 36 seats. The Popular Party under mayoral candidate Gerhard Stoppel also suffered this time: the ÖVP, which had lost around twelve percentage points in 2015 and only won 31.60 percent and twelve seats, once again experienced a collapse and this time only achieved 20.13 percent approval. That meant the loss of five terms. Stoppel represented 16.03 percent in the direct mayoral election. With Deputy Mayor Bernhard Amann of “Ems isch üsr,” who had retired from politics in March and is now running again, 20.52 percent of the electorate put up their cross.

In Lorüns, in the district of Bludenz, and in Übersaxen, in the district of Feldkirch, two lists were presented for the elections. In Lorüns, the “List Lorüns” prevailed with a 61.68 percent share of the votes against the “List Zemma for Lorüns” (38.32 percent). In Übersaxen, the “Dorflist Übersaxen” (73.10 percent), as five years ago, clearly had the advantage over the FPÖ (26.90 percent).

All the information about the 2020 municipal council elections