The Greens party in the Austrian capital Vienna has been trying to fire its only city councillor of Turkish descent.
Proceedings were started after Ömer Öztas reportedly tried to infiltrate the party with more than 100 cronies to secure his re-election.
Earlier in January, the party began moves to exclude Öztas, one of the Greens’ 16 councillors in Vienna’s 100-member city parliament.
The Greens party has since confirmed the ongoing exclusion procedure. it was a rare situation, especially with regards to a city councillor, said Barbara Obermaier, the Greens’ secretary general in Vienna.
Öztas, son of Turkish immigrants and “Vienna’s youngest councillor ever” as he described himself online, has been accused of signing up dozens of people for membership with the Greens.
Many of them were reportedly unaware that they were now members of the Greens party. In several cases, Öztas was alleged to have paid the membership dues of €40 per year for his acquaintances.
“He channelled around 100 people into the party, all of which are now party members. Many of them have a Turkish background”, an anonymous party insider told Austrian media on January 22.
Some of the new members were also allegedly members of the Turkish CHP party – a violation of the Greens’ statute that forbids belonging to other political parties.
Öztas reportedly first showed up with his new members at a November 2024 gathering of the Greens where they were negotiating the places on the party list for the 2025 city council election.
The final list will be voted on in February 2025.
The election – originally slated for autumn – was moved forward to April 2025 by Vienna’s ruling Socialist-led coalition.
The Greens are expected to lose a third of their voters, polling at 9 per cent of the vote as opposed to 15 per cent in 2020. That means many Green councillors will probably lose their seats.
The Vienna Greens currently have slightly more than 1,000 members, meaning a bloc of 100 members could give any hopeful an edge in internal votes.
Confronted with the accusations Öztas told Austrian media: “It is not a bad thing to advertise for oneself, is it?”
He later said he was “shocked” by the accusations and would fight against exclusion from the party. He had ventured into the Turkish community to promote Green ideas, he claimed.
Despite the ongoing exclusion procedure Öztas said he had no intention of standing down and added he had submitted his candidacy for city councillor on January 23.
