2008 State Elections in Austria and Germany

[Tender Branson]

6 state elections coming up next year:

Austria (2)

* Niederösterreich (Lower Austria) - 9 March 2008
* Tirol (Tyrol) - 8 June 2008

Germany (4)

* Hessen (Hesse) - 27 January 2008
* Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) - 27 January 2008
* Hamburg - 24 February 2008
* Bayern (Bavaria) - 28 September 2008

---

[Tender Branson]

Results of previous elections:

Austria

Lower Austria - 2003:

ÖVP: 53.3%
SPÖ: 33.6%
FPÖ: 4.5%
Greens: 7.2%
Others: 1.4%

Tyrol - 2003:

ÖVP: 49.9%
SPÖ: 25.8%
Greens: 15.6%
FPÖ: 8.0%
Others: 0.7%

Germany

Hesse - 2003:

CDU: 48.8%
SPD: 29.1%
Greens: 10.1%
FDP: 7.9%
Others: 4.1%

Lower Saxony - 2003:

CDU: 48.3%
SPD: 33.4%
FDP: 8.1%
Greens: 7.6%
Others: 2.6%

Hamburg - 2004:

CDU: 47.2%
SPD: 30.5%
Greens: 12.3%
FDP: 2.8%
Others: 7.2%

Bavaria - 2003:

CSU: 60.7%
SPD: 19.6%
Greens: 7.7%
FDP: 2.6%
Others: 9.4%

[Tender Branson]

Current Opinion Polls:

Austria

Lower Austria:

ÖVP: 53%
SPÖ: 31%
Greens: 9%
FPÖ: 6%
BZÖ: 1%

Tyrol:

ÖVP: 43%
SPÖ: 24%
Greens: 17%
LD: 9%
FPÖ: 7%

Germany

Hesse:

CDU: 40%
SPD: 33%
Greens: 11%
FDP: 7%
LP: 5%
Others: 4%

Lower Saxony:

CDU: 46%
SPD: 29%
Greens: 9%
FDP: 8%
LP: 4%
Others: 4%

Hamburg:

CDU: 45%
SPD: 30%
Greens: 14%
LP: 5%
FDP: 3%
Others: 3%

Bavaria:

CSU: 58%
SPD: 18%
Greens: 11%
FDP: 4%
LP: 4%
Others: 5%

[Middle-aged Europe]

Bavaria will of course a pretty boring and more or less irrelevant election... that's like discussing/predicting the outcome of a U.S. presidential election in Utah or D.C. Far more important and interesting will be the three-way race for CSU leadership between Erwin Huber, Horst Seehofer, and Gabriele Pauli this September.

In Hesse, Lower Saxony, and Hamburg recent polls indicate that the election could be determined by the results of DIE LINKE. If they're below 5%, it will be a CDU/FDP (or CDU only) government, if they're above 5%... well, in that case we will probably see some additional Grand coalitions, unless the SPD decides to break "Cordon sanitaire" and forms SPD/Green/Left alliances (which would be heavily opposed by the federal SPD leadership, since their strategy for the 2009 federal election is based on the whole concept that they rule out any cooperation with the LEFT and favour alternative models like SPD/Green/FDP instead).

Ah, btw, as a little sidenote: Coincidentally, the elections in Hesse and Lower Saxony will take place on my 26th birthday.

[Tender Branson]

Looks like Lance, Lewis and me will be the ones who provide the infos on these races in the next year. Lewis is from Frankfurt, Hesse - so he´s right in one of the states with an election. I don´t know where Lance is coming from in Germany but he seems willingly to contribute a lot too.

I agree that Bavaria is most likely the most predictable election, with a CSU "hold" guaranteed. It´s like a German Utah, as Lance said before. The main things for me in next years Bavarian elections:

* Who will win the CSU leadership in September ?
* Will the CSU get more than 60%, the SPD more than 20%, the Greens more than 10% and FDP and Left Party more than 5%, which is the treshold ?

Lower Austria and Tyrol used to be Austrian Utahs in state elections - conservative strongholds. The centrist-conservative ÖVP took a beating in last year´s federal elections when they suffered a 9% loss, but still managed to stay ahead of the Social Democratic Party (39-36 compared to 48-37 in 2002).

The state ÖVP on the other side isn´t really in a bad shape, primarily because of it´s popular governor, Erwin Pröll. Therefore the question in Lower Austria will be if Erwin Pröll's ÖVP will once again get more than 50%, which is currently very likely. Also the 10% mark for the Greens isn´t out of question.

The picture in the state of Tyrol on the other hand is more uncertain: The ÖVP used to get close to 70% of the vote after the Second World War, but since then slipped to fewer than 50% in 2003. This month more problems for the ÖVP surfaced, as prominent state ÖVP member and union boss Fritz Dinkhauser announced to run with a list on his own. He would get up to 9% in initial polling. The ÖVP therefore, which has always obtained a majority of seats since WW2 could be sent into opposition for the first time if a SPÖ-Green-Dinkhauser coalition is possible after the election.

Also the result of the state Green Party will be closely watched: They are currently polling 17% which would be the highest percentage a Green Party has ever attained in a state election in Germany or Austria. (The Greens in Bremen got 16.5% in early 2007.)

OK, that´s it for now. Hopefully Lewis and Lance can give us some updates on Hesse, Lower Saxony and Hamburg as I´m not very familiar with their politics.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Looks like Lance, Lewis and me will be the ones who provide the infos on these races in the next year. Lewis is from Frankfurt, Hesse - so he´s right in one of the states with an election and allthough I´m from Salzburg I´m studying in Innsbruck, which is the capital of Tyrol. I don´t know where Lance is coming from in Germany but he seems willingly to contribute a lot too.

It's still Saxony-Anhalt.

* Who will win the CSU leadership in September ?

Probably Huber. Psychologically, CSU delegates are not the type of party members who tend to challenge the establishment. And Huber is the establishment candidate. Pauli has no change at all and Seehofer would be a surprise victory. The main questions are: Will Huber be elected on the first or the second ballot? Will he fail to win a majority in the first round because of the Seehofer/Pauli challenges? How many votes will Pauli get and who will the Pauli delegates support in the case of a run-off?

* Will the CSU get more than 60%, the SPD more than 20%, the Greens more than 10% and FDP and Left Party more than 5%, which is the treshold ?

My guess: No. Yes. Yes. No idea/Possibly. No (it's Bavaria after all ).

[Tender Branson]

* Who will win the CSU leadership in September ?

Probably Huber. Psychologically, CSU delegates are not the type of party members who tend to challenge the establishment. And Huber is the establishment candidate. Pauli has no chance at all and Seehofer would be a surprise victory. The main questions are: Will Huber be elected on the first or the second ballot? Will he fail to win a majority in the first round because of the Seehofer/Pauli challenges? How many votes will Pauli get and who will the Pauli delegates support in the case of a run-off?

This new poll supports your assessment:

All Bavarians polled want :

Huber: 32%
Seehofer: 28%
Pauli: 24%

CSU members only:

Huber: 45%
Seehofer: 33%
Pauli: 15%

Looks like SPD, Greens and Left Party supporters are rooting for the rebel, Gabriele Pauli. What a surprise !

[minionofmidas]

Huber: 32%
Seehofer: 28%
Pauli: 24%

CSU members only:

Huber: 45%
Seehofer: 33%
Pauli: 15%

Very bad figures for Seehofer. Never really stood a chance, but Pauli's entry made it worse. Huber will basically be coronated *ready to be positively surprised*

[Tender Branson]

New poll for Lower Saxony:

CDU: 47% (= absolute majority because of the 5% hurdle)
SPD: 29%
Greens: 9%
FDP: 7%
Left Party: 4%
Others: 4%

[Tender Branson]

New poll for Hamburg:

CDU: 42%
SPD: 33%
Green Party: 13%
Left Party: 6%
 
FDP: 3%
Others: 3%

Possible coalitions:

Grand Coalition (CDU-SPD)

CDU-Green

SPD-Greens-Left Party (unlikely because the Hamburg SPD ruled out any coalition with the Left)

[Middle-aged Europe]

New poll for Hamburg:

CDU: 42%
SPD: 33%
Green Party: 13%
Left Party: 6%
 
FDP: 3%
Others: 3%

Possible coalitions:

Grand Coalition (CDU-SPD)

CDU-Green

SPD-Greens-Left Party (unlikely because the Hamburg SPD ruled out any coalition with the Left)

From what I've heard and read a CDU-Green coalition in Hamburg isn't actually that far-fetched (in comparison to other states).

Hamburg's CDU tends to be relatively liberal... be it for the fact that their mayor is a) GAY and b) one of the few CDU politicians who came out in favour of a full EU membership for Turkey, I think. And if forced to choose between a coalition with the SPD and the Greens, the CDU might opt for the Greens (since smaller coalition partners are easier to control anyway).

This leaves the ball in the Greens' field, who could be not quite as opposed to possible coalition with the CDU as in some other states... which brings us to Hesse, where the state SPD causes the federal SPD some headaches, since Hesse's SPD seems not very opposed to a possible SPD/Green/Left coalition, if this is the only way to send the CDU on the opposition banks.

[minionofmidas]

That's only as long as the SPD is trailing the CDU in the polls... Roland Koch leading a Grand Coalition is a scary and unsettling thought. To virtually everybody. (Of course, to his fans the scary and unsettling part is of him being forced to rely on Ypsilanti to govern.)

Meanwhile, the guy whom the Left Party leadership wanted to lead the list, Dieter Hooge, a bigwig union official (recently retired) and for forty years a member of the SPD, has been voted down by the convention delegates, by a vote of 59 for him to 81 for his opponent, a Marburg local politician who until '96 was in the DKP (Marburg is the only place of any size with 5% thresholds where the DKP had a long history of being in parliament.) Hooge chose not to seek a position further down on the list. Hooge was controversial because of
a) the way he'd been installed from "above"
b) the undemocratic ways DGB unions are led and the big paychecks their leaders give themselves and their cozy relationships with management
c) his not ruling out a red-green-red coalition (apart from those in the Left who don't want to govern under any circumstances, I suppose there were also those who felt that talking the option up is playing the CDU's game in this election campaign).

The convention took place in the Bürgerhaus Bornheim, just down the road from where I grew up.

[Tender Branson]

New polls:

Hamburg:

CDU: 42%
SPD: 32%
Greens: 13%
Left Party: 7%

FDP: 4%
Others: 2%

Hesse:

CDU: 42%
SPD: 32%
Greens: 10%
FDP: 8%

Left Party: 4%
Others: 4%

Lower Saxony:

CDU: 44%
SPD: 34%
Greens: 9%
FDP: 7%

Left Party: 3%
Others: 3%

[Tender Branson]

New Tyrol poll:

ÖVP: 44%
SPÖ: 26%
Greens: 16%
LD: 7%
FPÖ: 6%
BZÖ: 1%

[Hash]

Who's LD and BZO?

[Tender Branson]

Who's LD and BZO?

Sure you know the BZÖ, don´t you ? The party was created in 2005 after the FPÖ´s internal leadership struggles between Jörg Haider and Heinz-Christian Strache. The BZÖ is only really existant in the state of Carinthia and barely gets above 1% in any of the other 8 states. Haider is the governor of Carinthia, where the BZÖ is polling between 30% and 40% in state elections, while the FPÖ is pretty much non-existant there. The FPÖ-BZÖ situation in Austria is comparable to the CDU-CSU in Germany, only that the CDU-CSU relationship is working perfectly, whereas the BZÖ and FPÖ are deadly enemies since their split 2 years ago.

...

The LD (or List Dinkhauser) is a list to be headed by Tyrolian ÖVP member and state union boss Fritz Dinkhauser, who decided to split from the state ÖVP, because he critizized them as too conservative and agricultural. There has always been a rift between the more conservative "Bauernbund" (Farmers Union) and the more progressive ÖAAB (Services and Workers Union). There are already negotiations with consultants of the ÖVP Governor, who´s a member of the Farmer´s union and Dinkhauser, to convince him not to enter the elections with a list of his own. But he´s stubborn and is likely to stand, which is a good thing. The Tyrolian Conservatives are too static anyway if you ask me. Some form of progressiveness and discussion within their ranks would be a good thing in my opinion.

[Tender Branson]

* Who will win the CSU leadership in September ?

Probably Huber. Pauli has no change at all and Seehofer would be a surprise victory.

How many votes will Pauli get and who will the Pauli delegates support in the case of a run-off?

Pauli destroyed her last chances to win the CSU leadership today when she proposed that marriages should be limited to 7 years with renewing them afterwards. LOL. Is she running for leadership of the most conservative party in Bavaria or for chair of the Green Party ?

Prediction: Huber will get 55% of the delegates to 35% for Seehofer and I think 10% for Pauli may even be overrated considering her statements ...

[Middle-aged Europe]

Stoiber has "suggested" that Pauli should leave the party. Apparently, she also got bashed by Bavarian representatives of the Catholic Church (no, not the Pope ) for her proposal. Well, not that she had any chance in the first place...

So, it now comes down to establishment candidate Huber and wife-cheater Seehofer. I really wonder who'll win this.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So, it now comes down to establishment candidate Huber and wife-cheater Seehofer. I really wonder who'll win this.

Safe Seehofer

[Tender Branson]

The date for the state elections in Lower Austria is probably April 20, 2008.

No wonder that some FPÖ party members voiced their satisfaction with this date ...

Well, what happened on April 20 ?

[Hash]

Hitler's birthday?

[Tender Branson]

Hitler's birthday?

Bingo

[Hash]

Is the FPÖ that obsessed with Adolf?

[Tender Branson]

Is the FPÖ that obsessed with Adolf?

Not to stereotype all who voted for the party, but yes, not few are ...

[Tender Branson]

Back to Bavaria:

New Forsa poll on the CSU leadership:
 
Huber: 48%
Seehofer: 31%
Pauli: 20%

The poll was taken before the Pauli "marriage-suicide" ...

Plus the poll on the state elections next year:

CSU: 57%
SPD: 19%
Greens: 9%

FDP: 4%
Left Party: 3%
Others: 8%