A portrait of Khom
A captain takes over in turbulent times
After the election defeat, Manuela Khom leads the Styrian ÖVP into the first coalition with the Freedom Party. The president of the provincial parliament is considered to be feisty and affable.
When Manuela Khom sets off in the morning, it is usually still dark. It is at least an hour and a half from the geographical "edge" of Styria, from Murau, to the Landhaus in Graz. She will soon be moving from the Landhaus, where Khom spent the last term as President of the Landtag, to the castle: on Tuesday it was officially announced that Khom will lead the ÖVP as junior partner in a blue-black state government. New political territory calls for a new face.
The choice fell on the 61-year-old leader of the women's movement and economic ally. Born in Burgenland, she began her political career in 1995 on the local council of Lassnitz near Murau and entered the provincial parliament in 2010. "She has been fighting for accessibility, for road and rail in the region and for rural areas for decades," says Murau Mayor Thomas Kalcher (ÖVP).
A black feminist
Khom is considered courageous, resolute and feisty - especially when it comes to women's issues. "Equal rights are important to her, and she has achieved four," says Kalcher. She was the one who convinced Hermann Schützenhöfer of the zipper principle on ÖVP lists in 2019. "She was polarizing and didn't always have it easy," recalls Josef Herk, head of the Wirtschaftsbund. "Those who argue strongly don't just make friends. But the difficult times only spurred her on." Khom, says Herk, is "not a fair-weather captain".
She herself has trained as a "gender agent", i.e. an equality expert. It can certainly be described as ironic that Khom is now supporting a gender ban in the state administration with the FPÖ.
Business, but social
Although Khom comes from a business background, Herk attests to her sense of social responsibility: "She has always seen society as a whole." According to Mayor Kalcher, she has always wanted to counteract the "drifting apart". "When I went into politics, 'Help the helpless and don't worry about the carefree' became my motto," Khom wrote in the editorial of the latest magazine of the Styrian VP women.
Cookies after midnight
When she returns to Murau after a long day in parliament and in the car, it can happen that Manuela Khom is still shoving cookies down the pipe at two o'clock in the morning - "if she has to", because they are needed for an event organized by the women's movement, says Mayor Kalcher. In the VP women's magazine, she presents a recipe for "Murauer Zwetschken-Bier-Brot" (Murau plum and beer bread) and describes herself as a "proud grandma" on her Instagram profile. She is also said to have a passion for high heels.
After Waltraud Klasnic, she is the second woman to head the Styrian ÖVP.
This article has been automatically translated,
read the original article here.
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