Austrian Elections & Politics - Version 1.0

[DC Al Fine]

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.

Kudos to Tender for making me so knowledgeable about Austrian politics that I alienated my friends by trying to explain the election

[DC Al Fine]

TS dead as expected. BZO is in others... Lol.

NEOS seems to be the sole heir to the free market movement. They should improve their result next election.

[DC Al Fine]

New Gallup poll today:



The liberal NEOS reaches a new high, the ÖVP reaches a new low. Probably some vote flows between them.

Makes sense I guess. OVP's positions are a bit outdated if they want to be the main centre-right party. There's a definitely a niche on the centre-right in socially liberal suburban types that OVP isn't really serving.

[DC Al Fine]

The liberal party NEOS (better said, their base @ a convention) voted today to fully legalize pot:



http://diepresse.com/home/politik/innenpolitik/4197225/Neos-wollen-Cannabis-legalisieren

Despite the base vote, leading members (incl. party leader Matthias Strolz) are not happy with the vote, because they think that fully legalizing pot is "hard to sell" to Austrian voters (recent polls show that Austrians oppose pot legalisation by about 56-36).

Care to take a guess what the #'s are like for people open to voting for NEOS?

[DC Al Fine]

The Team Stronach is going the way of the joke party BZÖ:


So, as you can see the TS is in deep sh*t and likely gone by 2018.

http://derstandard.at/2000008480051/Team-Stronach-Nachbaur-tritt-aus-Partei-aus

As far as I can see members of BZO and TS should defect en mess/merge with each other or  NEOS or FPO if they want any chance of survival. Those parties isolated are useless.

NEOS doesn't need (or want) any of these failed personalities from the TS or the BZÖ. Would be bad for the party image.

And while the FPÖ would be the best choice for these failed personalities, they won't take them either (despite the fact that the FPÖ is already made up of failed personalities as well ... )

I agree. It's a question of where TS & BZO voters go now. I assume most will go FPO with a significant minority going OVP and NEOS.

[DC Al Fine]

* The "Young ÖVP" proposed a switch from PR to FPTP in the new party program. For this to pass, a 2/3 majority was needed from the delegates. The measure was rejected by 1 vote (66.58%) ...

Very interesting. Is this just the ÖVP proposing a shift from MMP to FPTP or a broader section of the Austrian electorate? And why would that be?

The reason why I ask is due to the fact that, here in Canada, the NDP and Greens are also proposing a reverse shift... from FPTP to MMP in order to make popular vote share match elected representatives.

BTW, the Canadian provinces of BC, Ontario, and PEI all have had relatively recent referendums on moving from FPTP to MMP (STV in BC`s case). All 3 referendums failed.

In Austria, the ÖVP/NEOS/TS favour a switch to FPTP.

The SPÖ doesn't really have a position on it, but seems to be in favour of the status quo.

Greens and FPÖ are strongly opposed to FPTP and want to keep PR.

...

The last poll about this issue was not long ago: 35% support, 35% oppose, 30% undecided.

Talk about changing PR in favour of FPTP often comes up if the government in charge (SPÖVP) gets nothing or not much done and then they think FPTP solves everything ...

Why on earth would NEOS favour FPTP?! They'd get slaughtered under that system.

[DC Al Fine]

SPÖVP has found a new topic to bridge the "summer hole" and now wants to end the so-called "cold progression" or "bracket creep":

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21601529-flush-tax-revenues-germany-considers-ending-bracket-creep-steep-and-cold-progression

http://derstandard.at/2000019495496/Neues-Steuerzuckerl-bringt-Budgetpfad-ins-Wanken

This would help the average Austrian worker get another 50-150€ a month in wage.

Ugh. Sadly this is still a problem in my province. Thankfully, the problem was fixed about 15 years ago at the federal level.

[DC Al Fine]

Because 4 former Team Stronach MPs have now switched to the ÖVP parliamentary club, a new poll shows a majority of Austrians in favour of banning party switching of MPs.

There has been a debate recently about banning the practice, because MPs are not directly elected - only via party list. The solution would be to force rogue MPs to step down, so that the party can substitute them with someone else, which also means they cannot become Indy MPs anymore.

The poll shows 52% in favour of a party switch ban and 32% opposed.

http://www.profil.at/oesterreich/umfrage-ueber-verbot-parteiwechsels-5795880

The same stupid debate as in the Netherlands. As if increasing party discipline is good for democracy.

I think it depends on the system. If you voted for Geert Wilders when he was on the VVD list, then it's fair to say he has an individual mandate and can jump ship. However if you vote for some closed list, what part does the individual MP have in that?

[DC Al Fine]

66% of Austrians say the country is on the wrong track
80% think the government is incapable of solving the country's problems

Yet, 45% would vote for a current government party.

It's telling much about the opposition.

Yet the fact that a despicable party like the FPÖ is at an all-time high in the polls is telling much about the government...

And if you don't like this government, it doesn't necessarily mean that one cannot like one of the government parties, or vote for them, even though the reasons why people would like the SPÖ or the ÖVP are beyond me.

Frankly, some time out of government would do SPOVP some good, both internally and in their electoral prospects.

Right now where they are in a feedback loop:

1) SPOVP implement unpopular policies
2) Support leaks to FPO
3) There is no viable alternative to SPOVP so they are reelected

And so on and so forth. I don't really see the loop ending until some sort of alternative government is formed.