Funding abuse reported to the Linz local council: MFG distances itself
“The MFG stands for transparency and decent, orderly political work that serves the citizens, everything else has no place with us,” comments LAbg. Joachim Aigner, MFG Austria federal party chairman, on the events surrounding the two former MFG local councilors in Linz. There are mutual accusations of funding abuse, and the public prosecutor’s office is now already investigating: “Not everywhere that says MFG has MFG in it! In any case, the headlines in some media that put the MFG in a bad light are misleading, even though the two local councilors in question, Norbert Obermayr and Vera Schachner, have turned their backs on the MFG for years.”
Haven’t been at MFG for years
Norbert Obermayr and Vera Schachner ran for the municipal council election in Linz in 2021 on the MFG list and entered the Linz municipal council with two mandates. Both of them have been gone from MFG for a long time now. Norbert Obermayr was expelled from the MFG in 2021 after taking actions contrary to the MFG’s core values. Vera Schachner turned her back on the MFG in 2022. Both continue to sit on the local council – as so-called “wild MPs”. Due to the legal situation, mandataries retain their mandate, even if they subsequently leave or are excluded from the party for which they originally stood and were drafted. “It is a flaw in the system that representatives who obviously do not represent the values of the party for which they ran and for which the people elected them and instead do their ‘own thing’ cannot have their local council ticket taken away.” said Joachim Aigner. “The behavior of the two local councilors shows that people are abusing emerging movements for personal and financial gain. Reform is urgently needed to make it more difficult for the arbitrariness of “armchair glue” mandates to be made more difficult.”
Misleading media reporting
It is also misleading that, according to the statutes of the city of Linz, a faction exists for the duration of the municipal council’s term of office and is, so to speak, “indissoluble”. This means that the MFG faction continues to exist in the Linz municipal council, even though the two representatives of this faction are no longer members of the MFG. This circumstance ultimately leads to often misleading reporting: what is usually reported is “abuse of funding at MFG Linz”, a “dispute over funding from the city of Linz in the former MFG list”, etc. The fact that the local councils in question have not been MFG members for years and instead sit as “wild representatives” on the local council, is only mentioned in a small aside, which is certainly easy to miss for the less attentive reader. “What sticks with people are of course the headlines – and these suggest that the suspicion of funding abuse would affect the MFG People – Freedom – Fundamental Rights party, which is not the case because the suspects no longer have any connection to the MFG.”
, said LAbg. Manuel Krautgartner, MFG-OÖ Klubobmann.
Is Norbert Obermayr sitting “illegally” on the Linz municipal council?
As brought to light by the MFG last year, there is a suspicion that Norbert Obermayr should not actually sit on the Linz municipal council. The prerequisite for a mandate is that you have a main residence in Linz. Main residence is therefore the place that a person would like to make the “center of their life interests” – criteria for this include length of stay, place of residence of family members and place of employment. As the MFG became aware, Norbert Obermayr is probably not based in Linz, but in Liechtenstein – which would mean that he is wrongly sitting on the Linz local council. “Unfortunately, we only found out about this fact when Norbert Obermayr had already managed to gain a seat on the Linz municipal council,” says Joachim Aigner, regretting the events. “Back in 2021, everything had to happen so quickly; here we obviously trusted the wrong person who shamelessly exploited our trust and that of the voters.”
Based on current events and media reporting, the MFG has now received documents that confirm the suspicion that Norbert Obermayr actually has his center of life in Liechtenstein and not in Linz. “We will immediately send the evidence to all relevant authorities with a request to clarify this situation as soon as possible,” said Joachim Aigner about the further course of action.
“Put the mandate aside and stop damaging taxpayers any further”
I expect both Norbert Obermayer and Vera Schachner that, based on all the circumstances presented above, they themselves are ready to draw the necessary and appropriate consequences, namely that they resign from their mandates, do not cause any further damage to the taxpayer and pay back the damage caused.” is Joachim Aigner’s demand to the two local councilors concerned.
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