Portrait: Ulrike Lunacek

By joan on Friday, June 5, 2009 - 07:55

Please consider: I vote green. I'm partial to LGBT people. Hence, I might be biased. ;)
- Joan

Ulrike Lunacek is the front-runner of the Austrian party Die Grünen - Die Grüne Alternative (The Greens - The Green Alternative) for the EU elections.

She was born in 1957 in Krems an der Donau. After graduating from the University of Innsbruck with a degree in Translation Studies (English and Spanish) she worked as a socialworker in a women's shelter, as a journalist and interpreter and taught German as a second language to refugees.

In 1999 Lunacek successfully ran for parliament. She is the first out lesbian Member of the National Council of Austria. As a member of the Green parliamentary group she is spokeswoman for foreign affairs and development, as well as for the equality of LGBT people.

Last January she won the run-off ballot against Johannes Voggenhuber, the former front-runner for EU elections, 54,7% to 45,3 % and now succeeds him in this position (www.marco-schreuder.at).

What followed hasn't always been pretty. There has been a lot of talk about Lunacek being the wrong decision, mainly from Voggenhuber and his many devotees (derstandard.at). Voggenhuber suspected that the party had long since planned to get rid of him and complained about sexism (Interview at derstandard.at). This was obviously directed at the fact, that the Austrian Green Party now had three women in important positions: on the same day that he had lost his candidature to Ulrike Lunacek, Eva Lichtenberger had taken second place and Eva Glawischnig had been elected federal spokeswoman.

Voggenhuber argues that, contrary to himself, Lunacek had little experience in Brussels and might cause a loss of one of the two seats the party holds in the European Parliament (derstandard.at). Taking a look at Lunacek's CV one finds that she isn't quite as inexperienced as that. Since 2006 she is a spokesperson of the European Green Party and before that she was and still is the spokeswoman for foreign affairs of the Green parliamentary group.

The controversy isn't solely based on hurt feelings, though. It appears that there are dynamics inside the Austrian Green Party that go beyond that and are concerned with a change of generations (or the lack thereof). This debate isn't very public, angry blogposts and forum-comments aside, and I don't feel confident to analyze it based just on this.

In my point of view it would be a shame if the Greens lost votes over inner party tussles and therefore I want to close this post with a plea to direct the focus back to issues. Marco Schreuder just blogged 10 Gründe Grün zu wählen (10 Reasons to Vote Green), the Guardian and the German Financial Times both spoke in favour of voting green.

We need more out LGBT politicians to speak up for us. I am confident that Ulrike Lunacek is the right person to do so.

In her speech at the party convention in January Lunacek said, that she loves the EU the way Thomas Bernhard had loved Austria (www.marco-schreuder.at). Bernhard was famous for the fierce criticism he voiced against his home country and so I hope that with Ulrike Lunacek we will have a MP both with a love for the EU and the strength to voice criticism.

~~~

In Austria the election to the European parliament takes place on Sunday.
Wherever you live, whatever party you may favor: Please, vote!