(LifeSiteNews) – Less than an hour after the first projection showed that the establishment candidate won the presidential election in Austria, a member of the government announced that mask mandates would soon return.
On Sunday, October 9, former Green Party leader and sitting President Alexander Van der Bellen was the overwhelming favorite, according to polls.
Van der Bellen, by his own admission, is a former member of a Freemasonic lodge in the Austrian City of Innsbruck. He claimed to have been “active” for about a year in the mid-1970s. “After that, I continued to pay membership dues as a purely passive member for about 10 years and finally resigned at my explicit request.”
Three of the five political parties in the Austrian Parliament openly endorsed Van der Bellen before the election, and several politicians of the nominally conservative ÖVP had also stated their support for the sitting president.
Among the parties currently in Parliament, only the right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ) opposed Van der Bellen, calling him the “candidate of the failed system” and accusing him of dividing society by endorsing “completely unfounded and malicious” COVID policies.
On Sunday evening, the first projection showed that Van der Bellen had likely won the election and achieved more than the required 50% of the vote to be directly re-elected as president.
The first projection of the Austrian presidential election results:
Source: https://ooe.orf.at/stories/3177232/
Less than an hour later, Green Party Club leader Sigrid Maurer, who is a member of the Austrian government coalition, said in an interview that a return of mask mandates indoors, in public transport, and in grocery stores is “exactly what is to be expected.”
Maurer said that the mandates would be introduced “just as it was always announced.”
“When winter comes, when the [COVID] number goes up, then at some point the mask mandates indoors, in public transport, and in grocery stores […] will be the first measure to be reimplemented,” Maurer stated.
Many commentators and news outlets had suggested in the days leading up to the election that the mask mandates would return shortly after the balloting was over. Maurer addressed the speculations by calling them “not helpful.”
The suggestions that the government was just waiting for the presidential election to be over to announce new COVID restrictions were fueled by certain comments made by officials. Asked about the return of mask mandates a day before the election, Austrian Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Green Party) said that they will “monitor the situation for a few more days” before making a decision.
Journalist Martin Thür pointed out in a tweet the “coincidence” that higher pension payments were announced before the election, and mask mandates after the elections:
Pension increases before the election. Mask mandates after the election.
Coincidences from the Ministry of Social Affairs.
Pensionserhöhung vor der Wahl. Maskenpflicht nach der Wahl.
Zufälle aus dem Sozialministerium. https://t.co/5GCGtRHMrz
— Martin Thür (@MartinThuer) October 9, 2022
Freedom Party politician Harald Vilimsky blasted the Green Party for their hypocrisy by posting a picture of them celebrating without masks on election night while forcing children and workers to wear masks again:
Who is forcing mandatory masks back on our children and workers? Green hypocrites.
Wer unseren Kindern und Arbeitnehmern die Maskenpflicht wieder aufzwingt? Grüne Heuchler. #idgroup pic.twitter.com/EFEPppWaft
— Harald Vilimsky (@vilimsky) October 10, 2022