Category Archives: Austria

Austria

Austria – St. Pölten election

The election for the St. Pölten city council was held on Sunday. This is the biggest city in the Lower Austria state.

 

SPÖ – Social Democrats, 25 seats (-1)

ÖVP – Christian Democrats, 11 seats (+1)

FPÖ – Freedom Party, 4 seats (+2)

Grüne – Greens, 2 seats (-1)

Austria – State election Vienna

In Austria a local election was held yesterday for the Land (state/regional-level) council in Vienna.

The following table from Die Presse provides a picture of the votes received and the seats won in the state parliament and compares them to the 2005 result:

Social Democrats (SPÖ)
Christian Democratic People’s Party (ÖVP)
Freedom Party (FPÖ)
Grüne (Greens)
Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ)
Communist Party (KPÖ)

I could almost cut and paste previous Austria regional election posts, but, suffice to say, that the right-wing FPÖ party was, in one sense, the big winner. Whereas in 2005, the Christian Democratic People’s Party was the second largest party, this time the right-wing Freedom Party emerged as the second party. The ruling Social Democrats have lost their absolute majority, but only marginally.

Austria – State election Styria

In Austria a local election was held on 27 September for the Land (state/regional-level) council in Styria.

The following table from Die Presse provides a picture of the votes received and the seats won in the state parliament and compares them to the 2005 result:

Social Democrats (SPÖ)
Christian Democratic People’s Party (ÖVP)
Communist Party (KPÖ)
Grüne (Greens)
Freedom Party (FPÖ)
Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ)

As the graphic shows, the right-wing FPÖ party was the big winner. This means (see Landesregierung) that they will now have one seat in the state government. Both the SPÖ and the ÖVP have four seats. So, the FPÖ is the kingmaker in terms of the election of the state president. The SPÖ is causing some controversy by appearing to court the FPÖ in order to retain the regional presidency. There is a report in the Austrian Independent.

Austria – State election Burgenland

In Austria a local election was held on 30 May for the Land (state-level) council in Burgenland.

The official website of the Land has a nice table of results comparing the 2010 election and the previous election in 2005.

Social Democrats (SPÖ)
Christian Democratic People’s Party (ÖVP)
Freedom Party (FPÖ)
Grüne (Greens)
List Burgenland (LBL)

The bottom line is that nothing much changed. The Social Democrats, who have been doing badly generally, declined somewhat, but there were no major surprises.

In terms of seats, the SPÖ and the Greens each lost a seat. The FPÖ and the LBL each gained a seat.

Austria – Presidential election

The presidential election in Austria was held yesterday. There were no surprises. Incumbent president, Heinz Fischer from the SPÖ (Social Democrats), was standing for a second term. No second-term presidential candidate has ever been defeated in Austria.

As reported in a previous post, the main opposition party, the ÖVP (Christian Democrats), did not stand a candidate against him. Therefore, the opposition came from the extreme-right, or at least the nationalist right, FPÖ (Freedom Party) in the form of Barbara Rosenkranz. There was also a third candidate, Rudolf Gehring from the Christian party.

Anyway, the Interior Ministry is reporting the following results:

Heinz Fischer, 78.9%
Barbara Rosenkranz, 15.6%
Rudolf Gehring, 5.4%

There is a really nice article on the election at The Monkey Cage.

Austria – Local elections

Local elections were held in three Austrian states last Sunday: Niederösterreich (lower Austria), Tirol and Vorarlberg.

In Niederösterreich the ÖVP consolidated its position and the SPÖ confirmed its run of poor results. Even if you do not speak German, the following picture gives you the situation pretty clearly:

According to Die Presse, in Vorarlberg the SPÖ also did badly, though it is not strong in that region. The reported votes are as follows (2005 in brackets):

ÖVP – 44.63 (45.35)
SPÖ – 10.75 (15.61)
FPÖ – 11.33 (11.49)
G – 7.32 (7.02)
Others – 25.97 (20.52)

Party labels:
ÖVP – Österreichische Volkspartei (Austrian People’s Party)
SPÖ – Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs (Social Democratic Party)
FPÖ – Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Austrian Freedom Party)
G – Greens
Sonstige – Others

In Tirol, the SPÖ also lost some ground.

While too much should not be read into the results, it should be noted that the presidential election will be held on 25 April. President Heinz Fischer of the SPÖ is standing for re-election. Neither the ÖVP, nor the right-wing BZÖ, nor the Greens are standing a candidate. Therefore, the main opposition will come from the FPÖ candidate, Barbara Rosenkranz. However, Fischer is expected to be re-elected easily. There is a nice post on the presidential election at the The Monkey Cage.

Austria – Oberösterreich (Upper Austria) state election

In Austria an election was held on Sunday in the state of Oberösterreich.

Following only a week after the Vorarlberg state election, the result was another disaster for the SPÖ, which received its worst vote ever in this state. (See below).

The ÖVP increased its vote and won exactly half of the seats in the state parliament. The other big winner was the FPÖ.

Here are the figures from Wiener Zeitung (2003 in brackets):

ÖVP – 46.8% (43.4%)
SPÖ – 25.0% (38.3%)
FPÖ – 15.3% (8.4%)
Greens – 9.2% (9.1%)
BZÖ – 2.8%
KPÖ – 0.56% (0.95%)
DC – 0.43%

Party labels:
ÖVP – Österreichische Volkspartei (Austrian People’s Party)
SPÖ – Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs (Social Democratic Party)
FPÖ – Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Austrian Freedom Party)
BZÖ – Bündnis Zukunft Österreich (Alliance for the Future of Austria – ex-FPÖ)
KPÖ – Kommunistische Partei Österreichs (Communist Party)
DC – Die Christen (The Christians)

Austria – Vorarlberg state election

In Austria an election was held on Sunday in the state of Vorarlberg.

The ÖVP confirmed its position as the largest party in the region even though its vote declined, while the FPÖ also increased its vote considerably. By contrast, the SPÖ did very poorly with the Greens outpolling them. Here are the results from Wiener Zeitung. (The 2004 figures are in brackets).

Turnout 67.4%
ÖVP – 50.8% (59.4%)
FPÖ – 25.2% (13%)
Greens – 10.4% (10.2%)
SPÖ – 10.1% (16.9%)
Gsiberger – 1.7%
BZÖ – 1.2%

Party labels:
ÖVP – Österreichische Volkspartei (Austrian People’s Party)
SPÖ – Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs (Social Democratic Party)
FPÖ – Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Austrian Freedom Party)
BZÖ – Bündnis Zukunft Österreich (Alliance for the Future of Austria – ex-FPÖ)

Austria – EP election

The EP election was held in Austria on Sunday.

The turnout was 45.3%. The EP is reporting the following results (2004 in brackets):

ÖVP (Austrian People’s Party) – 30%, 6 seats (32.7%, 7)
SPÖ (Social Democratic Party) – 23.8%, 4 seats (33.3%, 6)
Liste “Dr. Martin – für Demokratie, Kontrolle, Gerechtigkeit” (Dr. Martin’s List — For Democracy, Control, Justice) – 17.7%, 3 seats (14%, 2)
FPÖ (Austrian Freedom Party) – 12.8%, 2 seats (6.3%, 1)
GRÜNE (Greens) – 9.7%, 2 seats (12.9%, 2)
BZÖ (Alliance for the Future of Austria – ex-FPÖ) – 4.6%, 0 seats

Another bad day at the office for the SPÖ. At last year’s legislative election they won 29.7%, which was a poor result and they have declined further. That said, the Martin List is headed by a former SPÖ leader and may have attracted some votes away from the main SPÖ list. For their part, the ÖVP won 25.6% and so they increased their support. The BZÖ, which was an offshoot of the FPÖ, and which was led by the late Jorg Haider did badly at its first post-Haider election.

An article on the 2004 EP election Austria can be found here.

Cohabitation – Austria

This is a series of posts that records the cases of cohabitation in countries with semi-presidential constitutions. Cohabitation is defined as the situation where the president and prime minister are from different parties and where the president’s party is not represented in the cabinet. Presidents classed as non-party cannot generate any periods of cohabitation.

There have been three periods of cohabitation in Austria:

April 1966-April 1970:
President – Franz Jonas (SPÖ); PM – Josef Klaus (ÖVP); government – ÖVP

Jul 1986-Jan 1987:
President – Kurt Waldheim (ÖVP); PM – Franz Vranitzky (SPÖ); government – SPÖ, FPÖ

July 2004-Jan 2007
President – Heinz Fischer (SPÖ); PM – Wolfgang Schüssel (ÖVP); government – ÖVP, FPÖ/BZÖ

Sources:

List of coalitions – http://www.bka.gv.at/site/5957/default.aspx
List of presidents – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Austria