Austrian Elections & Politics - Version 1.0

[Cranberry]

Quite similar to Tender Branson's, just with NEOS being stronger than SPÖ

40% ÖVP
23% FPÖ
15% Grüne
10% NEOS
10% SPÖ
2% Others

[Cranberry]

Will the first projections be available already at 1 then? At federal elections, you usually get the total of Vbg's results at 5 already because of this; but I don't know about state elections?

[Cranberry]

Okay... Well, it is just Vorarlberg, so... I mean, it should be understandable that the Barbara Karlich Show is far more important than that

[Cranberry]

Okay... Well, it is just Vorarlberg, so... I mean, it should be understandable that the Barbara Karlich Show is far more important than that

No, actually "Panorama" and "Heimat, Fremde Heimat" (which is what ORF2 will show on Sunday between 1pm and 2pm instead of state election coverage).

I do not know any of those programs, I just took the only ORF afternoon program I knew
Like every sane Austrian, I restrict my ORF-watching to some football games I want to see (usually not broadcasted, but anyway), ZIB, and post 21:00 programs

[Cranberry]

Bizau has 0.86% SPÖ!
The Bregenzerwald is just hilarious when it comes to voting

[Cranberry]

This is actually a great result.

6% gains for the Greens, a modest NEOS result and even slight losses for the FPÖ is a good result. The only thing Vorarlberg will have to work on is 40%+ ÖVP

[Cranberry]

It would be the 6th state government (out of 9) with the Green Party in it (only Lower Austria, Styria and Burgenland have no Greens in the government).

Do the Greens get any actual influence on environmental policies and infrastructure in these coalitions? 

Yes, the most important projects pushed by the Greens include the MaHü in Vienna:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=180261.msg4083333#msg4083333

And a few speed limit regulations on highways (80 km/h or 100 km/h instead of 130 km/h) to lower emissions & particulate matter concentration for example in Tyrol and Salzburg which are heavily impacted by transit cargo transports.

At least in Tirol however they have been quite disappointing. They basically did nothing on the Agrargemeinschaft-dispute (the question who is to own certain areas of alpine woodland - the municipalities or an association of local farmers (many of them are no farmers anymore however) that have owned and managed them for the last 60 years, yet in no way are democratically legitimised. This is a huge problem because many of these lands are now used as ski resorts, and the associations earn a whole lot of money from the tenancy or even own the resorts themselves sometimes), they are very quiet on the conversion of the Kalkkögel, a very beautiful natural protected area, to a ski resort; the only thing they got through really was the 100km/h on the motorway, while otherwise they have become the people to say yes when the ÖVP wants something...

[Cranberry]

The gender gap in that exit poll is really quite amazing - one of the biggest I have seen anywhere. Is FPÖ that much of a mens party in the rest of Austria?

That one was really a big one, but FPÖ is usually very unbalanced when it comes to gender...
I have heard FPÖ in Vbg were quite successful in attracting young men with immigrant background, so that might have helped...

[Cranberry]

If OVP and FPO do form a coalition would that be the first government at any level to have one since the 2000 national coalition?

There was a ÖVP-FPÖ government in Vorarlberg until 2009.

However, I don't think that we will get a ÖVP/FPÖ government any time soon now, as the Greens especially in the West, where they are far more conservative than in Vienna, have become a viable alternative for the ÖVP; as the FPÖ simply isn't seen as an agreeable option by the people that still vote ÖVP...
Not that I hope it, but next year in Styria we could see one party enter a coalition with the FPÖ, though that will be more likely the SPÖ... Generally, there are some voices within the SPÖ that do want a Red-Blue coalition, especially from the SPÖ's workers wing (naturally the constituency where SPÖ and FPÖ compete the most; so I guess those guys just fear their political survival)
But as of now, basically since Schüssel, the FPÖ just is a no-go for any political party, state and federal level.

[Cranberry]

Is this recent "surge" of ÖVP numbers the Django Mitterlehner factor?

[Cranberry]

Sure, it's a very early poll; but this looks quite good for Styria.

[Cranberry]

Is Fayman likely to go before 2016? Who would follow him?

It is always a possibility, yet as long as he keeps the backing of Michael Häupl, the mayor of Vienna, he should be fairly safe. SPÖ leaders generally "live" longer than ÖVP leaders, the one before Faymann, Gusenbauer, was leader for eight years, of those six years in opposition. I would say this is due to two reasons, firstly all of them since Kreisky being Bundeskanzler, and secondly since they usually come all from Vienna or are at least well settled within the Viennese establishment. The ÖVP leaders have to please all, farmers, the ÖVP-unions, Lower Austria, the Western States, Upper Austria etc. etc. The SPÖ leader on the other hand "just" needs to please Vienna and the unions (usually mutually exclusive). As such, I would deem it unlikely for Faymann to go away anytime soon, barring anything unforeseen happens.

If that should happen however, I have to say I have no clue, and probably the SPÖ as well has no clue, as to how could succeed him. About every SPÖ "hope" in the last years (Schmidt, Heinisch-Hosek, Darabos...) have put themselves to the outside, through political errors of one sort or another (Darabos led the debacle around the draft-reform in 2013, Schmidt with the "reform" of our education system...). So, I really have no clue.

[Cranberry]

So, it looks like the ÖVP just needed to change their leader to whack NEOS and the small right-wingers.

Well, I would say that's just typical Austrian thinking we see here - we usually like everything that is new (TS, NEOS, now Mitterlehner - even Faymann was popular at the beginning! ), then our media overhypes this new thing, and ten minutes later they all go vote FPÖ - the usual Austrian procedure

[Cranberry]

Haha, that article is just hilarious - I found it on Facebook a couple of days ago

"Als Wiedergutmachung will die Post allen Volksgruppen und Minderheiten, die damals Schaden erlitten haben, fünf Prozent Rabatt auf die Briefmarken-Sonderedition Zweite Republik gewähren." ...

[Cranberry]

Strache (FPÖ-leader) today at the annual FPÖ "New Year's Meeting" with 3000 or so guests:

* I want to become Mayor of Vienna !

If I lived in Vienna, I'd help him achieve that goal.

Sorry to disappoint you, but he won't become mayor.
No, in all seriousness, he will not win that race, just as he did not in 2010 or will not in 2020.  Luckily, the FPÖ is just not going to get their majority in Austria as of now, and will not for a long time, I shall hope.

[Cranberry]

To give you an example of how small municipalities in Austria can be, here one municipality that will elect its council and mayor tomorrow:

Großhofen:
86 inhabitants
Council with 13(!) members, plus mayor - more than 15% of the village's population hold elected office!
Wiki

The shocking thing about this is that this municipality is not even the smallest one in Austria, there are loads of others with similar sizes or even fewer inhabitants - Gramais in Tirol has 54 inhabitants, Namlos (that municipality's name literally means "name-less"; that just as a sidenote ) has 85, Hinterhornbach has 90... And all of them have a full-functioning (and paid) council (around 10 council members, in NÖ often more), a mayor, a municipality secretary...

[Cranberry]

Tender, did you copy and paste that last post from Strache's Facebook page?

[Cranberry]

I would love to see the OVP/SPO coalition be defeated, but the outcome risks to be even worse...

Now you know how I feel... ÖVP and SPÖ have plagued this country for seventy years now, but what comes after them? Our beloved nazi parade....

[Cranberry]

The German phrase is "Gehört der Islam zu Österreich?"
Normally, "gehören" means "belong to"; I wonder if "belong with" is better here? It means roughly if the people think that Islam is a part of what is Austria; so not that they believe there should be no Muslims in Austria, but rather that they believe Islam is not a "real" part of Austria.

[Cranberry]

It means roughly if the people think that Islam is a part of what is Austria; so not that they believe there should be no Muslims in Austria, but rather that they believe Islam is not a "real" part of Austria.

There's a difference? As soon as we start to define who is and who is not a 'real citizen' then we enter dangerous territory.

If you ask about a general category (ie Islam) you get different numbers than if you name a group of people (ie Muslims).

Precisely.

But then again, the paper that asked that question is a cheap tabloid, Bild-like; so of course they want the most "anti-Islam" answer possible...

[Cranberry]

Haha, the local Greens chapter is not really called "Grüne&Emsige"?

[Cranberry]

Directly, though at the same time with the Council.

[Cranberry]

... Thirty percent ...
Welcome to a three-party coalition in Vienna?

[Cranberry]

Good to see Austria has got at least one sane state where the FPÖ is polling in the low double digits where it belongs.

What's LBL by the way ? I don't remember hearing about them.

A) There are also 2 other states besides Burgenland in which the FPÖ does badly in state elections: Lower Austria and Tyrol. In Lower Austria, the FPÖ only got 8% in the 2013 election and in Tyrol only 9% (also in 2013).

While I agree on Lower Austria, I still wouldn't brand Tyrol as a sane state, but maybe that's just me...

I beg your pardon?

[Cranberry]

Good to see Austria has got at least one sane state where the FPÖ is polling in the low double digits where it belongs.

What's LBL by the way ? I don't remember hearing about them.

A) There are also 2 other states besides Burgenland in which the FPÖ does badly in state elections: Lower Austria and Tyrol. In Lower Austria, the FPÖ only got 8% in the 2013 election and in Tyrol only 9% (also in 2013).

While I agree on Lower Austria, I still wouldn't brand Tyrol as a sane state, but maybe that's just me...

I beg your pardon?

Well, looking at the results, it's a bit saner than Vorarlberg, I'll give you that.

What is then the difference that would make you count Lower Austria as a sane state and not Tirol? It's beyond obvious that the latter is by far the best state