Harald Mahrer has now resigned. However, not as President of the Chamber of Commerce, as was mentioned on Sunday. Mahrer is “merely” resigning from his position at the National Bank. After all, he is “not available for half measures”. Mahrer is leaving to stay. Someone has to imitate him first.
But where does he stay? Will he be able to present himself as a warning in the desert in the future, as he liked to do in the past? What does it sound like when he thunders, as he did recently, that the state is “too fat”? How will the countries react when Harald Mahrer says – quite rightly, by the way – that they “succumb like imperial rolls”? Or if he certifies in support of the state that the times of “whatever the cost” must finally be over? And above all: Will Harald Mahrer still be the power factor in the ÖVP that he was when the three-party coalition was formed? The answer to all of these questions is: no.
Harald Mahrer has suffered such great damage to his image in the past few days and lost such a high degree of credibility that a “causa finita” is out of the question. The affair will continue to accompany him wherever he goes. The genesis of the scandal in the Chamber of Commerce shows this. Because what started as an excess of fees in the chamber has, in just a few days, specifically developed into criticism of him personally.
The heads of the state chambers did not object to salary increases. Ultimately, as is well known, they approved themselves up to 60 percent higher compensation. It was all about Mahrer’s appearance. About his “dilettantish communication”, as the Upper Austrian head of the chamber, Doris Hummer, put it. To say that salaries would only rise by 2.1 percent but to suggest that the 4.2 percent increase would only be delayed for six months was, to put it politely, deliberately misleading. Such a “sleight of hand,” as some have called it, costs trust.
Apparently, some anger towards Mahrer has been building up for a long time in the state chambers, but especially within the ÖVP. This has now discharged in one go. Behind closed doors from the ÖVP, it has been said for some time that Mahrer might not be entirely averse to a move to the Federal Chancellery. That dream, if it was ever dreamed at all, is now over once and for all.
And since the beginning of his presidency, Mahrer has never really warmed up to the state chamber officials. “Many small and medium-sized companies no longer feel represented by the Federal Chamber,” said a medium-sized company from Upper Austria recently. Mahrer was seen within his own ranks as a mouthpiece for large companies.
However, things are seen very differently in large industrial companies. The first to loudly criticize were the presidents of the Vienna and Upper Austrian Industrial Association last week. The image that appears to the outsider is that of a completely divided entrepreneurial wing. Because those who see themselves as representatives of the economy have worked the most hard on each other. Industry against the chamber, parts of the ÖVP against the chamber and the chamber against itself.
And the entrepreneurs in this country look on, shaking their heads.
E-Mails an: gerhard.hofer@diepresse.obfuscationcom
