There have been repeated rumors of Tursky’s farewell recently, but the State Secretary has so far stuck to his official position of only withdrawing from Vienna and moving back to Tyrol after the local elections on April 14th. He definitely wanted to do this – even in the event of defeat. In fact, he now said, it was always the plan to resign from the office of State Secretary during the intensive election campaign phase. It just wouldn’t have been “the smartest idea” to announce it earlier, he said, referring to the mechanisms of media reporting.
There was also repeated criticism of the “dual function” as an election campaigner in the West and government politician in the East. The 35-year-old always commuted. Tursky and his civil alliance want to replace city boss Georg Willi (Greens). The official election campaign launch of “das Neue Innsbruck”, an alliance of the ÖVP, “For Innsbruck” and the Seniors’ Association, will take place on Monday at the Innsbruck Congress. This week Tursky presented his list of candidates.
Nehammer thanked Tursky for his achievements in the area of digitalization. “I wish you all the best for the election in Innsbruck, you are the right man,” he told him. The handover to the Youth State Secretary Plakolm, who is based in the Federal Chancellery – Tursky was responsible for the Ministry of Finance – was a great joy and also particularly symbolic on International Women’s Day. “The skills of a young man are transferred to the skills of a young woman.”
Tursky was pleased that he had achieved a number of things as State Secretary, from broadband expansion to ID-Austria and digitalization in the field of health. But he is not a man of half measures and wants to ensure a real new beginning in Innsbruck after all the controversy. “It’s home again for me now,” he said happily.
Plakolm spoke of a great honor. She will work intensively on the subject in the coming weeks and also shape it. “Digitization is the pulse of our time, and we need a pulse that is reminiscent of athletes,” she said: “We simply cannot afford the zero line.” Nehammer and Plakolms justified the fact that the digitization state secretariat would be merged and not replaced Routine in the craft of politics. This guarantees that projects can actually be put on the ground (in the remaining months of the legislative period, note).