"Questionable action"

Hospital dispute: Tough SPÖ response to threat of legal action

(Bild: Molnar Attila/Attila Molnar)

The red party does not want to be "intimidated" by the Lower Austrian health agency - and even goes one better.

Because SPÖ leader Sven Hergovich and the red national councillor Rudolf Silvan had recently criticized the state health agency in public, the state-owned company retaliated with a lawsuit for "credit-damaging" statements - we reported.

But the reply followed hot on the heels. And party manager Wolfgang Zwander shows no sign of restraint: "The SPÖ is on the side of the patients, we will not be intimidated by the ÖVP liaison officers in the LGA." Zwander once again questions why Konrad Kogler, a state police director, was appointed health manager by a former interior minister (state minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner, note): "That's not normal!"

Taxpayers' money is being used to take action against disagreeable political opponents, which is shameful even by ÖVP standards!

Wolfgang Zwander, Landesgeschäftsführer SPÖ Niederösterreich

Bild: SPÖ NÖ

According to Zwander, the SPÖ has been uncovering shortcomings in the healthcare system for months. But instead of improving things, "Lower Austrians' tax money is being wasted" when a state-owned company drags the Social Democratic top candidate before the judge shortly before the election. Zwander sees this as a "highly questionable action in terms of democratic policy".