Austrian Elections & Politics - Version 1.0

[ERvND]

Since the old thread is closed, I'll use this one:

Kudos to Tender for the most extensive and profound election coverage I have ever encountered. Thanks to him, we are all experts on Austrian politics now. I'm already looking forward to the next elections.

[ERvND]

Do you know something about those two secretaries of state of the treasury? Seems quite absurd to me - only two secretaries in the whole government, and then both within the same department.

[ERvND]

2 cabinet members added a religious reference to their swearing in:

Nice piece of information.

I'm surprised, however, that only two cabinet members added the religious reference. In Germany, I bet, all CDU/CSU members and maybe half of the SPD members will add it.

Given that the ÖVP is even more catholic and clerical than CDU/CSU, I wonder why "so help me God" is so uncommon among its cabinet members.

[ERvND]

Two questions regarding the EU elections in Austria:

Firstly, why is the ÖVP so strong at EU level? Nationally, it seems to be in decline, consistently in third place, whereas in EU polls, it seems to hang on to first place.

Related to this, why is the FPÖ so weak at EU level? One might think its issues (esp. anti-immigration) might be even more important in a European context. Yet, in this poll, it's even 3% weaker in the EU-poll than nationally.

[ERvND]

ÖVP:

Probably 2 reasons I can think of: The EU elections (contrary to federal elections) are low turnout elections. ÖVP voters tend to be those who always say in polls they are more motivated to vote. This helps them in EU elections, much more than in federal elections where voters of the other parties are turning out in comparable high numbers.

Othmar Karas, their pretty well-known and popular frontrunner.

FPÖ:

The opposite of the ÖVP, when it comes to voter mobilisation: FPÖ voters are more motivated to vote in federal elections than EU elections, even though the EU is one of the FPÖ's main issues. Why ? Because as long as FPÖ-voters cannot vote on the Exit of Austria from the EU, their likelyhood to vote remains low. The FPÖ is only critical of the EU these days, but actually doesn't want to get out of it anymore, which means many people are sitting this out.

Interesting info, thanks.