Austrian Elections & Politics - Version 1.0

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

[EPG]

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

[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

[Tender Branson]

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.

Plus: The SPÖ's leadership election is taking place next weekend in which Faymann will be re-elected party leader for the next years.

If the SPÖ has a bad 2015 state election year (and they might as well have it, according to all the polls, losing big in Vienna/Upper Austria & Styria), then the pressue for Faymann to step down will increase extremely.

I could then see the Burgenland Governor Hans Niessl following him.


Niessl left, Faymann right.

Niessl has to fight his own state election early next year, but polls show that "his" state SPÖ is doing relatively well at around 47% (losing only 1%).

Because the other state elections will follow at a later date and the SPÖ is projected to lose by a much higher percentage there, Niessl could serve another year as Burgenland governor. Then, the SPÖ calls another leadership vote in early 2016 and Faymann quits in favor of the popular Niessl. That would leave Niessl with a more than 2-year timespan to position himself for the 2018 federal election and leave also enough time for the person who follows him as Burgenland-governor.

[Tender Branson]

A graphic I made today to show you in a nutshell what's going on within the Team Stronach:



Headline: "Team Stronach Co-party leader Kathrin Nachbaur leaves party because Frank Stronach wants a 'strong man' to lead the party."

Stronach (Cartman): "Bad, BAD Kathrin Nachbaur ! Respect my authoritahhhh !"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZh10Ez0op8

[Tender Branson]

Strache wants 30-40% plus FirstPlace in VIENNA and then a FPÖ&SPÖ-coalition - utopia. Yet, both parties have announced, that they prefer to campaign on a - fictive - duell Häupl vs. Strache (as in 2010), probably shifting SPÖ above 40% and perhaps FPÖ above 30%.

Strache is just trolling around.

I think the FPÖ will even have problems beating the 26% they got in 2010 ...

[Tender Branson]

Question on the left:

"ÖVP-leader Mitty has recently suggested that the retirement entry-age should be raised automatically each year based on the rising life expectancy. Do you agree with this ?"

Question on the right:

"Currently it is planned that the retirement entry-age for women (now 60 years) is streamlined with those of men (now 65 years) step-by-step between 2024-2033. The ÖVP wants a quicker alignment of the women retirement entry-age with the men's. Do you agree with this ?"

[Tender Branson]

For those who can read German, the best satire-newspaper in Austria:



FPÖ-leader Strache once posted an article from it on his Facebook page, without realizing that the article was just satire.

Just a week ago, they posted this:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

...

Too bad I can't translate all this hilarious stuff for you ...

[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." ...

[Tender Branson]

The full article translated to English (thanks to Google Translate and my cross-checking/reading so that it makes sense as well):

Letter left & forgotten at post office for years: Art Academy confirmation of admission only delivered to Adolf Hitler now

"We hereby inform you that our decision regarding your admission to the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts has been positive."

Flabbergasted, family Ölmez (explanatory note from Tender: a Turkish immigrant family) of Linz reacted when this letter arrived Tuesday morning in their mailbox.

The addressee: Adolf Hitler. As it turns out now, the acceptance letter was lying around all undiscovered for 107 years in the post office.

Family father Can Ölmez says: "I first thought: What is this? An application to the Academy of Arts? Did my daughter go off the rails? Only then did I read the first line: Dear Adolf Hitler".

The Humboldt Street in Linz. Where the Ölmez-family now lives, the young painter Hitler then lived with his mother. With a painting under his arm he went to Vienna and applied at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts. Hitler wanted nothing more than to study painting - but for the acceptance letter he waited in vain.

Diary entries from the time show how much it meant to him: "Every morning I rushed to the mailbox, but again no message for me. Is my painting bad? Do these gentlemen not understand art?"

The fact that he never got a letter eventually wore him down and embittered him. Hitler was turned off by the art and turned to politics. The rest is a sad story.

At the post office, they were able to reconstruct what happened and found the error: The letter back then slipped into a drawer labeled "advanced vocational training". This drawer was however not opened anymore for more than 100 years. If the envelope back then would have simply slipped into the drawer named "sick leave", they would have discovered it on the same day.

The Post regrets the error: "Our employees deliver five million shipments each day. If delays occur due to any errors or a World War is triggered, so of course we regret this very much."

Hitler's letter can not be delivered anymore by the Post. According to the Post, Hitler in the 1950s still issued a redirection notice for Paraguay. Meanwhile, however, the Post is not aware of any current address anymore.

As compensation, the Post will grant five percent discount for the postage stamps "Second Republic Special Edition" to all the ethnic groups and minorities who have suffered damage at that time.

During the course of internal investigations, the Post also said another error in connection with Hitler has emerged: In 1939, master-carpenter Georg Elser from Graz has sent a letter bomb to Adolf Hitler, which would have killed him with certainty, according to experts. The bomb never arrived however, because the postman at that time left behind only a yellow piece of paper to Hitler.

The letter of acceptance to the Art Academy:

[Tender Branson]

The Austrian civil servants (incl. teachers, police officers, correctional officers, military personel, etc.) will have their union vote today and tomorrow.



230.000 will be eligible to vote.

In 2009, the results were:

55.84% FCG (ÖVP-near conservative unionists)
28.62% FSG (SPÖ-near unionists)
  8.56% UG (Independent/Green unionists)
  5.70% AUF (FPÖ-near unionists)

Turnout: 81%

When looking at the results by the individual branches, the teachers all over the board are heavily FCG-voting, while the police officers are slightly FSG-voting, with a strong showing of the AUF as well. Correctional officers have a strong AUF-share too, but vote FSG/FCG. Civil servants from the military are strong FCG and some AUF.

http://derstandard.at/2000008633496/Beamte-waehlen-ihre-Personalvertreter

[Tender Branson]

NEOS to run in all 12 elections next year:

http://derstandard.at/2000008646789/Neos-Werden-bei-Praesidentschaftswahl-eher-interessierte-Zuschauer-sein

They say that the Burgenland state election will be the toughest one.

They are also undecided if they'll field a Presidential candidate on their own in 2016.

They may back the Green candidate Alexander Van der Bellen, if he runs (I have mentioned such a scenario before, because NEOS and Green-voters are overlapping on many issues).

They call VdB an "interesting personality".

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[Tender Branson]

The ÖVP is now ahead by 2 points (ATV Austria Trend, sample = 1000):



Despite the fact that the ÖVP gained 8-9% in the past few months ("Django-Effect"), it's basically still a 3-way tie for 1st place.

[Tender Branson]

There's also a new Meinungsraum/NEWS magazine poll out today:

27% FPÖ
24% ÖVP
23% SPÖ
15% Greens
  7% NEOS
  1% TS
  3% Others

In the past 2 weeks, there have been 6 polls (all by different pollsters).

The range for all parties:

23-28% ÖVP
24-27% FPÖ
22-27% SPÖ
12-16% Greens
    7-9% NEOS
    0-1% TS

The average for all parties:

25.7% ÖVP
25.5% FPÖ
24.3% SPÖ
13.8% Greens
  7.3% NEOS
  0.8% TS
  2.6% Others

[Tender Branson]

The HYPO-bank debacle is getting crazier and crazier:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/27/austria-hypo-bayernlb-idUSL6N0TH1AP20141127

Thanks Jörg Haider, thanks Josef Pröll and thanks to all the other banking crooks !

Thank you all for the 30 Bio. € or so that the Austrian taxpayers now have to swallow because of your criminal energy and/or incompetence !

[Tender Branson]

The party called BZÖ has 5.450€ left in their bank account (and 2.5 million € of debt).

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http://wien.orf.at/news/stories/2681631

"And then the lights went out."

[Tender Branson]

The Austrian civil servants (incl. teachers, police officers, correctional officers, military personel, etc.) will have their union vote today and tomorrow.

230.000 will be eligible to vote.

Here are the full results by branch:

http://diepresse.com/files/BE_alle.pdf

Overall:

53.0% FCG/ÖVP (Faction of Christian-Social Unionists)
26.5% FSG/SPÖ (Faction of Social Democratic Unionists)
10.7% UGÖD/Greens (Independent/Green Unionists)
  7.7% AUF/FPÖ (Action Group of Independent and Freedomite Unionists)
  2.1% Others

Turnout: 79%

...

The AUF was pretty strong with military (BMLVS) civil servants (increase from 19% to 32%), mostly because of the budget cuts to the military proposed by the SPÖVP government.

The AUF also increased their share from 20% to 25% among police officers (but the FCG won them with 39% to 36% for the FSG).

Another good showing for the AUF was with correctional officers (24%), but down from 27% in 2009.

The Greens had their best results with high-school teachers, getting between 25-35%.

Elementary and middle school teachers voted heavily FCG again.

The Ministry of Finance employees (another huge group) also voted heavily FCG.

[Tender Branson]

The high share for the AUF/FPÖ union among police officers and correctional officers can probably explained with the fact that police officers and correctional officers have to deal with a high share of foreigners each day (every 2nd inmate in Austrian prisons is a foreigner, with only 12% of the overall population being foreigners).

[Tender Branson]

Today & tomorrow, the huge SPÖ convention incl. leadership vote takes place.

Live stream:

http://spoe.at/story/bpt14-live-stream

Currently some speeches.

Faymann to be re-elected SPÖ-leader later today at around 8:30pm. His target is 90%+, after receiving only 83% of the delegates last time.

[Tender Branson]

This picture from the Socialist Youth pretty much sums up SPÖ-leader Werner Faymann's time so far:

(right-click for huge version)



A very long "To Do !" list, on which only "Being Chancellor" is ticked off.

A banner reading: "And what did you achieve ?"

Note: The Socialist Youth is the youth organisation of the SPÖ and historically highly critical of the leadership and the current party platform/governing style and therefore attacks it from the Far-Left. They fear that if the SPÖ does not return to real Socialist policies, the SPÖ's vote share will fall and fall and fall.

And they are right !

The SPÖ is not a Social Democratic Party anymore, it's just a Social Democratic Party anymore ...

[Tender Branson]

New Gallup polls (conducted Nov. 25-27):

FEDERAL ELECTIONS



http://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/SPOe-OeVP-und-FPOe-auf-Platz-1/167023324

2016 PRESIDENT (2 different scenarios)



Austrians actually prefer the ÖVP candidate to be Leitl rather than Pröll by a 52-48 margin.

They also prefer the SPÖ candidate to be Hundstorfer rather than Bures by a 56-44 margin (Bures has already said she's not interested in being the SPÖ candidate).

http://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/Van-der-Bellen-Favorit-fuer-Bundespraesidentenwahl-2016/167021609

[Tender Branson]

So, the SPÖ voted today at their convention in favour of decriminalizing cannabis consumption (pressured by the Young Socialists).

This means that the SPÖ now joins the Greens in favour of decriminalizing cannabis consumption.

NEOS recently went a step further and voted to fully legalize it (incl. the sale of pot).

The conservative parties ÖVP, FPÖ and TS all remain opposed to it ("entry drug", "bad example for the youth and dangerous if legal", etc.)



Austria's pot law is funny anyway: While the law says that consumption of pot is fully legal, at the same time the law says that acquisition and possession is illegal ... And because there's no consumption without acquisition and possession, the whole act is illegal

[Tender Branson]

New Vienna state election poll (Gallup):



Hypothetical vote for Vienna mayor:



Do you approve or disapprove of the current SPÖ-Green city government ?



52-45 disapprove

http://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/Wien-Umfrage-Rot-Gruen-hat-klare-Mehrheit/167091401

[Tender Branson]

All 9 states have meanwhile presented their budgets for 2015 (most of them have already passed them in the state parliaments).

6 of the 9 have passed balanced budgets for 2015. These are:

* Vorarlberg
* Tyrol
* Salzburg
* Styria
* Lower Austria
* Burgenland

3 of the 9 states will have a budget deficit in 2015:

* Vienna (221 million €)
* Carinthia (97 million €)
* Upper Austria (55 million €)

Starting in 2016, the EU "budget deficit brake" as well as the "Austrian budget deficit brake" mandate that the central government, the states and the communities need to present balanced budgets.

While the Austrian central government is still miles away to achieve this (1.5% planned deficit for 2015), 6 of the 9 states already achieve it in 2015 and the communities are having a balanced budget too.

Faymann & Django still plan to have a balanced central government budget for 2016 though.

We'll see ...

Also, here are the debts per capita by state at the end of 2013:



http://www.nachrichten.at/nachrichten/politik/innenpolitik/Schuldenkaiser-und-brave-Sparer;art385,1536938

Salzburg state had an investment scandal between 2007 and 2012, which became known in late 2012 and led to the defeat of the previously popular SPÖ-Governor (the ÖVP also lost massively).

The financial scandal is now about 99% solved, with only 36 Mio. € left in toxic portfolios, but the damage from the scandal is still huge.

The Salzburg state debt increased from ca. 1.8 Bio. € pre-scandal to 2.2 Bio. € at the end of 2013.

With the balanced budget in 2015, the debt will go down to 2 Bio. € though.

It is estimated that the investment scandal was responsible for ca. 350 Mio. € in losses.