Edtstadler becomes Salzburg's second female governor
The fact that the leadership of the state government traditionally always lay in male hands was reflected in the term "Landeshauptmann" (governor). It was not until 1996 that the question first arose of how female officeholders should be named, when Waltraud Klasnic (ÖVP) was elected the first female state leader in Styria. The title "Landeshauptfrau" (female governor) was still unfamiliar at the time, which is why Klasnic was addressed as "Frau Landeshauptmann" (Mrs. Governor) during her ten-year term.
Female Governors in Austria: Pioneer was Waltraud Klasnic
The then state councilor and deputy governor came into office after the ÖVP's electoral defeat in the Styrian state election in 1995, where the People's Party fell from 44.2 to 36.2 percent and narrowly held ahead of the SPÖ. The resigned governor Josef Krainer junior had initially proposed state councilor Gerhard Hirschmann as his successor, but he stepped aside in favor of Klasnic. After five years in office, the first "Landesmutter" (female state leader) achieved a resounding re-election in the 2000 state election. Five years later, she resigned after an electoral defeat that led to a change of power in Styria.
For almost a year, there were already two women in the nine-member conference of governors, because on April 28, 2004, Gabriele "Gabi" Burgstaller (SPÖ) was elected the first red female governor in Salzburg. She had succeeded Gerhard Buchleitner in 2001 as deputy governor in the course of an orderly generational change and was the top candidate in the 2004 election, which brought the SPÖ a record increase (from 32.3 to 45.5 percent) and thus first place. Burgstaller also remained for two terms, withdrawing after an electoral defeat following the financial scandal in 2013.
In Six Federal States in Austria, Only Men Have Governed So Far
For the following four years, the men in the conference of governors were again among themselves. Since 2017, Johanna Mikl-Leitner has been governing in Lower Austria. A year after taking over from long-term governor Erwin Pröll, she managed to defend the absolute majority of mandates in the state parliament in 2018. In the 2023 state election, her ÖVP suffered a historic electoral defeat, and since then Mikl-Leitner has been governing with the FPÖ. While the small federal state of Salzburg now gets a female governor for the second time with Edtstadler, only men have governed in six federal states so far.
(APA/Red)
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