Austrian Election - October 1, 2006

[Colin]

Results:

OVP: 40
BZO: 14
Grune: -91
FPO: -100
KPO: -110
SPO: -169

I'm sorry to say this but Austria has a horrible party system. You guys need a true liberal party like most other European countries. Every since Liberals Forum disintigrated this whole political spectrum is unrepresented.

[Colin]

What are the policies of HPM List? Wiki seems very vague on what he and his party stands for. It seems mostly like an anti-corruption party.

[Colin]

Does Austria have a 4% or 5% threshold?

[Colin]

Yesterday the debate Greens vs. FPÖ took place and it was very weird, because of their contradicting positions on issues. Nearly all parties are now involved in smear campaigning and scandals.

The head of the Greens told the head of the FPÖ he is some kind of neonazi and that he´s surrounded by people with Nazi ideas while the FPÖ head accused members of the Greens to be molotov cocktail throwing extremists and a menace for drivers, because the Greens want to raise the gas price to 9$ the gallon and implement 60 mph even on highways.

Both then said: "Tomorrow our attorney will ring your doorbell and we will sue you !" The discussion ranged from accusations of diffamation and agitation of immigrants to denial of reality in cases of legalizing same sex marriages and some sort of basic income etc.

In other news, the SPÖ is involved in a major corruption scandal. A former investment banker from a union admitted giving "some thousand Euros" to the social democrats back in the 90s. The ÖVP is accusing the SDs to decieve the Austrian people and the SDs accuse the ÖVP to carry out a negative campaign. Indeed a Social Democrat governor described the ÖVP as a cancer cell. He later had to apologize.

The campaign debates are very poor when it comes to real issues like unemployment etc. and i think it´s now entering the phase where anyone tries to destroy the other party

Sounds fun.   Apparently, Austrian politics are much more interesting than German politics under the current Grand boring coalition.

Well having a neo-fascist party in parliament usually does that.

Just see what type of insanity would ensue if the NPD got into the Bundestag.

[Colin]

Good for the ÖVP then.  Given the way that military contracts are usually set up, once you sink some money in, it usually is better to go ahead and finish the contract.  Dropping the Eurofighter now only makes sense if the Luftstreitkräfte is going to stop operating fighter aircraft altogether.

Which, of course, for a small country that couldn't defend itself anyways, is exactly the only sensible option.

But small countries can defend themselves. Look at Finland in WWII and the Swiss Army now.

Come on, the Finns fought bravely but lost anyway. The main reason for the drawnout war, was Stalin had killed the majority of the officiers.

Countries like Switzerland and Sweden where not attacted during WWII because of a simple cost-benefit analysis. An analysis that still stands today - why waste your time in mountains and forests, when you can conquer fatter and easier targets. If any of the major powers really wanted to conquer Switzerland they could.

Very true Jens. Plus nowadays with things such as tactical nuclear weaponry, smart bombs, spy satellites, etc., those mountains and forests provide much less cover and much less of a disadvantage to the biligerant nation as they used to. I'm sure if some large nation with a large and technologically superior army put their will power into it they could crush Switzerland. Hitler probably could have as well its just that it would have taken too many of his men and the Swiss threatened to destroy German assets in Switzerland if they tried to attack.

[Colin]

That shouldn't be a surprise; it'll be much like Germany, where the Greens, Left and Free Democrats have all gotten significant boosts from being the opposition to the grand coalition. Unfortunately, in Germany at least, that seems to be entrenching the grand coalition; every vote for the Left Party, who refuse to form a coalition with anyone, is a vote against anything other than the grand coalition.

Well it's much different in Austria. A Grand Coalition in Germany is a very odd and unstable occurance, ebing that it only happened once before and only lasted 3 or 4 years IIRC, whereas in Austria a majority of the governments after 1945 have been grand coalitions so whereas its an odd and unstable occurance in Germany and that is driving up the numbers for the other parties it is very much more a common occurance in Austria. Although I could definitely see some some larger numbers from the Greens just because the Social Democrats seemed to have sold out on their campaign promises in order to ensure a stable coalition.

As for the Left Party their support has stayed mostly static, I haven't seen support rise over 12% in any poll, most of the dissident SDP voters are moving to the Greens and dissident CDU voters are moving to the FDP.

The Left Party also does not say that it would not join in a coalition with anyone else the problem is that no other party wants to be associated with the ex-communists in any way, shape or form, though I do remember some bringing up the possibility of a red-red-green coalition after the last elections.

[Colin]

the problem is that no other party wants to be associated with the ex-communists in any way, shape or form,

With the exception of the former DDR.

True but it would definitely hurt the SDP in the West if they were to form a coalition with the Left Party.

[Colin]

That shouldn't be a surprise; it'll be much like Germany, where the Greens, Left and Free Democrats have all gotten significant boosts from being the opposition to the grand coalition. Unfortunately, in Germany at least, that seems to be entrenching the grand coalition; every vote for the Left Party, who refuse to form a coalition with anyone, is a vote against anything other than the grand coalition.

The Left Party also does not say that it would not join in a coalition with anyone else the problem is that no other party wants to be associated with the ex-communists in any way, shape or form, though I do remember some bringing up the possibility of a red-red-green coalition after the last elections.

I am at least 99% sure that the Left Party rejected any talk of a coalition government immediately after the 2005 election. Whether the SPD and Greens would have approached them is a different issue, but they did explicitly say they would refuse any offer of a coalition.

This is from Wikipedia concerning the 2005 Federal Elections:

"All other established parties had ruled out the possibility of a coalition with the Left Party prior to the election, and refused to reconsider in the light of the closeness of the election result, which prevented either of the usual ideologically-coherent coalitions from attaining a majority. The possibility of a minority SPD-Green government tolerated by the Left Party was the closest the Left Party came to potential participation in government at this election."

At the subnational level Die Linkes Partei has a coalition currently with the SPD in the Berlin government.

[Colin]

the problem is that no other party wants to be associated with the ex-communists in any way, shape or form,

With the exception of the former DDR.

True but it would definitely hurt the SDP in the West if they were to form a coalition with the Left Party.

For now, yes that's true. How long for though?

Probably another decade or so, until either the horrors perpetrated by the DDR have been forgotten or been pushed into history or Die Linkes breaks further away from its former ties.