Tyrol opposition criticises state councillor over police application

Opposition parties in Tyrol have criticised Security State Councillor Astrid Mair of the Austrian People’s Party over her application for a senior police position, ORF reported. Mair applied for the job while in office and planned to take it after her political career. The criticism focuses mainly on the People’s Party’s style and political self-image.

Tyrol’s Freedom Party leader Markus Abwerzger wrote on Facebook about “days of chaos within the People’s Party”. He said Mair appeared to be being pushed out internally, but added that he could not imagine the current affair had caused this. “The opportunity simply presented itself. In my view, this is not good style. But that is also what the People’s Party is known for,” he wrote. Abwerzger called Mair “another bright spot within the weak Tyrolean government team”.

Green Party parliamentary group leader Gebi Mair described the division of responsibilities as a failed experiment. Tyrol had managed for 80 years without a separate security portfolio, he said, and the past four years had shown why. The structural flaw must not be continued, he said. “The responsibilities that will become vacant are manageable. They can easily be divided within the state government.”

Andrea Haselwanter-Schneider, leader of the Liste Fritz party, said Mair’s application for a top police job once again highlighted what she called the problematic political self-image within Tyrol’s People’s Party. “That an incumbent state councillor is already planning her professional future, applying for a senior position and wanting to continue in politics at the same time is revealing,” she said.

NEOS parliamentary group leader Birgit Obermüller said the timing of the application in particular required an explanation. “Anyone securing their professional future in the middle of their term of office has apparently already turned their attention elsewhere,” she said. Mair is the incumbent security state councillor, a former police executive and the partner of Tyrol’s provincial police director, Helmut Tomac. “In such a constellation, it is not enough to point out that everything is formally proceeding correctly,” Obermüller said.