Alternative list of Austria
The Alternative List Austria (ALÖ), sometimes also under the spelling Alternative List Austria, was one of the two predecessor organizations of the Austrian party The Greens - The Green Alternative .
history
The Alternative List of Austria was founded in autumn 1982 as a collective movement of predominantly young, left-wing, grassroots activists and was formed from people from the anti-nuclear, third world, peace and women's movements as well as student leftists such as the Revolutionary Marxists group .
The origins of the ALÖ can be found in movements such as the left-wing Forum Alternativ , which held a conference in 1979 parallel to a UN conference and built an eco-village on the Jesuit meadow in the Prater. The municipal political initiative was finally founded in Vienna, comprising the alternative forum, citizens' initiatives and anti-nuclear power groups. At the same time, the decentralized one was created in Graz . The Grazer Alternatives, where Peter Pritz laid the theoretical foundation for a green collecting movement as early as 1980 with his “Sketches of the Alternative Movement” are considered to be the originator of the ALÖ . On March 21, 1982, at an alternative meeting in Oftering (Upper Austria), which took place as one of the follow-up meetings of the First All-Austrian Alternative Meeting (Graz 1978), the decision was made to run as an alternative list in the National Council elections in 1983 . Erich Kitzmüller from Graz then wrote the group's first programmatic paper, and the first regional organization of the ALÖ was founded in autumn 1982 under the leadership of the Graz group.
On November 5, 1982 , the founding meeting of the ALÖ took place in the Graz Minorite Halls. Instead of a party executive, a group of speakers was set up for the ALÖ. Only the regional groups received their own spokesman. Furthermore, every "celebrity" was rejected, election posters should appear without names or photos of people. The Alternative List Vienna (ALW) stood apart from the federal list from the start. Internally, the ALW consisted of Trotskyists, former supporters of the KPÖ, left trade unionists and eco-fundamentalists. At the same time, a candidacy in the National Council elections was rejected internally because, from the ALW's point of view, the ALÖ was too firmly in the hands of the Graz activists and was rejected as too bourgeois. Despite committed grassroots work, the ALÖ only received 65,816 votes in the National Council elections in 1983 and, with 1.36%, was well behind the VGÖ . As a result, the ALÖ lost a lot of its importance. In 1984, Ali Gronner, Andreas Wabl and Doris Eisenriegler were elected for the first time, three party spokesmen, but they could not counteract the loss of importance of the ALÖ. Alliances with the VGÖ in various federal states did not lead to success. Only in Vorarlberg did the united green movement in October 1984 under Kaspanaze Simma achieve a surprising electoral success with 13% of the vote.
If the fight against the Hainburg power plant was an important motivator of the green movement, neither the ALÖ nor the VGÖ could pin the success on their flags. Neither of the two parties had played an active role in Hainburg, and even afterwards the two parties failed to usurp opinion leadership among the green currents. The opening of the ALÖ and the attempt to establish a green collective movement, however, led to the ALÖ breaking up into two competing wings. Since a united green party was not in sight, Günther Nenning , Gerhard Heilingbrunner and the lawyer Michael Mayrhofer constructed the main features of a parliamentary list. The moderate part of the ALÖ gathered in the Citizens' Initiative Parliament (BIP), whose first meeting took place on October 26, 1985 in Salzburg . The steering committee (initiative committee) included Kaspanaze Simma, Andreas Wabl, Doris Pollet-Kammerlander, Michael Mayrhofer, Gerhard Heilingbrunner, Pius Strobl and Johannes Voggenhuber . The plenary included Erich Kitzmüller, Freda Meissner-Blau , Robert Jungk and Christoph Chorherr . More and more green groups pushed into the GDP. As a counter-model to the BIP, the Green Alternative Collection (GRAS) was founded on February 12, 1986 , in which mainly representatives of the left (Viennese) wing of the ALÖ could be found.
When Franz Vranitzky had terminated the coalition in 1986 after Steger was overthrown by Jörg Haider, the National Council elections planned for 1987 were brought forward to October 23, 1986. The green groups came under pressure to compile a common list for the National Council elections. Under the leadership of Freda Meissner-Blau, the Green Alternative List Freda Meissner-Blau was registered and a basic agreement was concluded with the groups involved. The list should be drawn up with the participation of all local green groups. At the Vienna State Assembly on October 4, 1986, the historian Andrea Komlosy , who is close to the left wing of the ALW, was elected with 222 votes to 150 against Freda Meissner-Blau. Since the result of Freda Meissner-Blau was not recognized, the majority of the GRAS entered the National Council elections under the name The Green Alternatives - Democratic List (GAL) , but failed with 6005 votes. The electoral success that Die Grüne Alternative - Liste Freda Meissner-Blau achieved in the National Council elections in 1986 ultimately led to the establishment of the Green Alternative . Numerous members of the ALÖ found a new political home here, many political activists of the ALW could not recognize this as a violation of their basic principle that there should be no celebrity and have withdrawn from political work.
Election program of the ALÖ
The first election manifesto of the ALÖ was written by Erich Kitzmüller. The ALÖ saw itself as a left-wing alternative movement that committed itself to the basic principles of ecology, solidarity, grassroots democracy and nonviolence. The ALÖ advocated the abolition of the federal army and demanded the introduction of minimum and maximum incomes. At the same time, the ALÖ advocated "active resistance against environmentally and life-threatening aggression". At the same time, the principle of rotation should prevent people from holding higher positions for a long time.
Election results
National Council elections
- National Council election 1983 1.4%
- Election to the National Council in 1986 0.1% (as "The Green Alternatives - Democratic List", only candidate in Vienna)
State and municipal council elections
- Graz municipal council elections 1983 7.04% (as alternative list Graz , ALG)
- Vienna municipal council elections 1983 2.50% (as alternative list Vienna , ALW)
literature
- Othmar Pruckner: A Brief History of the Greens. Events - personalities - dates. Ueberreuter, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-8000-7124-X .
Footnotes
- ↑ Othmar Pruckner: A Brief History of the Greens. Events - personalities - dates. Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-8000-7124-X , pp. 24-25
- ^ City of Graz Excel table ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Wiener Zeitung : Vienna municipal council elections since 1945 ( Memento of September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive )