Austrian Elections & Politics 3.0 - Parliamentary Election: Oct. 15

[Tender Branson]

That's got to at least improve NEOS's chances by a little, right? Griss is well-liked, correct?

By 1-2% maybe.

Most of her 2016 voters for President were loan-voters from SPÖ and ÖVP who decided to back her over the toxic establishment party candidates. This time, SPÖ and ÖVP are more appealing.

[Tender Branson]

The "Krone" has a new internal SPÖ poll by IFES, which has the following (IMO crazy) result:

34% ÖVP
31% SPÖ
22% FPÖ
  8% Greens
  4% NEOS

[Tender Branson]

What's up today and next week ?

Today, NEOS will finalize their list with party members and party committee weighing in on the primary results. The citizen vote, party members and party committe each have 1/3 of the weighting in this process, so the party members and committe could still re-shuffle the list today.

From Monday to Wednesday, the Eurofighter investigation committee will have the last hearings. Peter Pilz will then announce if he'll run his own list and decimate the Greens.

On Thursday, Parliament will pass the election date in their final meeting and then close doors for the summer recess and for the next 3 years because the Parliament building gets renovated until 2020. The new parliamentary season will start in September at the interim parliament at the Hofburg.

[Tender Branson]

The Austrian Greens have shifted into full "joke-mode" ...

Recently, the frontrunner of the Carinthian Greens for the election was ousted by the delegates voting on the list. Marion Mitsche (who lost in a very tight vote) then complained and later stepped down, after it turned out that the Greens hired asylum seekers to (illegally) participate in the voting process.

http://diepresse.com/home/innenpolitik/5246430/Gruene_Putsch-mit-Hilfe-von-Asylwerbern

The last year has been rough for the Greens: First they win the Presidency with 54% of the vote. Now they are crashing in the polls (15% last year) to probably 5% in October (if Peter Pilz runs too).

[mvd10]

What's the budgetary situation in Austria? In 2016 the deficit was 1.6% of GDP, is it projected to go down by much the coming years? Is balancing the budget a priority for voters and/or political parties?

[Tender Branson]

What's the budgetary situation in Austria? In 2016 the deficit was 1.6% of GDP, is it projected to go down by much the coming years? Is balancing the budget a priority for voters and/or political parties?

The budget deficit is projected to be much better this year (around 0.7-0.8% of GDP), because the economic situation is better. GDP growth is 2-2.5% this year and job growth is also better. That means more tax revenues. So far until May, the budget deficit is down by 45% compared with last year. Also, there will be a HYPO bad bank re-payment to the state in late July - worth several billion €. I don't know exactly if this is relevant to lowering the budget deficit further, or only relevant to lowering the debt as % of GDP. If it's budget relevant, Austria could have a rare budget surplus this year.

2017-18 Forecast

And balancing the budget is important for many voters, yes.

[Tender Branson]

Polls are all over the place right now ... probably because it's summer and vacation time, with people not paying much attention to politics.

The SPÖ is polling between 23-31% right now, the ÖVP between 30-34%, the FPÖ between 22-27%, the Greens between 6-9% (with and without Pilz), NEOS between 4-6% and "other parties" between 2-6%.

Polls will only start getting interesting in mid-September when the kids are back to school and the campaign picks up speed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Austrian_legislative_election,_2017

[Tender Branson]

Austria elderly couple murder was Islamist killing

The Muslim Tunisian who killed the old couple out of FPÖ-hate swore allegiance to the IS and al-Bagdadi on social media and praised the slaughters committed by IS in Syria and Iraq - police said today, based on examinations of the killer's computer files.

http://ooe.orf.at/news/stories/2854041

Meanwhile, the FPÖ attacked the police and authorities for not preventing the killings (the anti-terror agency monitored the guy in 2015/16 because a neighbour informed them, but came to the conclusion he was not a radical).

[ApatheticAustrian]

the police union pushes back against the fpö-criticism and states haimbuchner - local fpö chief and vice governor of upper austria - should stop making overhasty statements.

[Tender Branson]

the police union pushes back against the fpö-criticism and states haimbuchner - local fpö chief and vice governor of upper austria - should stop making overhasty statements.

I agree with the police union: these self-radicalizing lone-wolfs are virtually impossible to stop, even if you monitor them. That still doesn't stop the ÖVP from calling for a renewed data-storage law (which btw was ruled unconstitutional by the Austrian Constitutional Court and had to be stopped a few years ago).

[Tender Branson]

Sebastian Kurz just had an A+ performance during the PULS 4 summer interview.

More tomorrow ... (pretty drunk right now because partying for my 30th birthday today just ended -> need bed).

[TheSaint250]

Sebastian Kurz just had an A+ performance during the PULS 4 summer interview.

More tomorrow ... (pretty drunk right now because partying for my 30th birthday today just ended -> need bed).

Lol well happy birthday

[Tender Branson]

Sebastian Kurz just had an A+ performance during the PULS 4 summer interview.

More tomorrow ... (pretty drunk right now because partying for my 30th birthday today just ended -> need bed).

Lol well happy birthday

Thx. Officially in my 30s now ...

[Tender Branson]

Sebastian Kurz just had an A+ performance during the PULS 4 summer interview.

More tomorrow ... (pretty drunk right now because partying for my 30th birthday today just ended -> need bed).

More on the A+ town-hall style interview by Sebastian Kurz on PULS 4 TV yesterday:

The questions were all pretty tough (interviewer Corinna Milborn is a tough journalist after all), but Kurz took the time and responded to every question with a vast knowledge of the issue and by saying things like "I'm not one who ignores problems. I'm a problem solver."



The audience was a bunch of young people, some Muslims and a couple SPÖ-voting girls who all asked questions. Kurz remained calm and answered all their questions in a cool way (lässig as the commentators would later say), directly looking at them. And after some time they even started to nod in favour ...

Corinna Milborn always weighed in on critical positions, on the Muslim kindergartens for example - which Kurz wants to abolish or strongly reform (and he blamed Red-Green in Vienna to ignore the problem). He said something like: "I don't need a study to know that there are many problems in Vienna's Muslim kindergartens."

Kurz also strongly defended closing the Mediterranean route for migrants, which Milborn said was impossible. To which Kurz said: "Everyone said we couldn't close the Balkans route, until I did."

The audience was slightly against him in the beginning, but he easily won them over by the end. At one point during the interview, I even noticed another "cool" thing by Kurz: He grabbed the big water glass at the bottom and re-filled the glass of the moderator with water. That also shows some good manners by Kurz.

The OGM poll at the end showed that 70% of the representative sample of voters thought Kurz had strong leadership qualities. 69% said that Kurz convinced them on the issues (Kern: 45%, Strache: 47% in their interviews).

Voters said that by a 63-37 margin, Kurz convinced them overall during the interview (it was 50-50 for Chancellor Kern and 48-52 for Strache).

Kurz did extremely well with women (which was evident during the interview, when women in the audience smiled at him like he was their boyfriend), convincing 70% of them. Men were convinced in the mid-50s. Kurz also convinced the young (59-41) and retired folk (72-28).

And most importantly, Kurz convinced 6/10 FPÖ- and NEOS-voters and also a good chunk of SPÖ- and Green-voters:



Media response:

"TV home game for Kurz."

http://diepresse.com/home/innenpolitik/5249890/Ein-TVHeimspiel-fuer-Sebastian-Kurz

"Kurz trumps Kern and Strache in TV interview."

https://kurier.at/politik/inland/kurz-uebertrumpfte-bei-tv-debuet-als-kanzler-kandidat-kern-und-strache/274.438.549

Here you can re-watch it:

http://www.puls4.com/pro-und-contra/videos/PULS-4-Sommergespraeche/PULS-4-Sommergespraech-mit-Sebastian-Kurz

[Tender Branson]

The chances for a rogue left-populist Green 2.0 list by ousted Green MP Peter Pilz are declining:

http://orf.at/#/stories/2398856

Several of his likely backers (among them a few other MPs, who got ousted by the Green delegates) are currently re-thinking their options, saying that a Pilz-list would cause "life-threatening damage" to the Green Party. Pilz needs the signatures of 2 other MPs to be on the ballot, or collect 2600 signatures from voters. He'll decide on his election plans by the end of July.

[ApatheticAustrian]

i think he would have needed dönmez.

it's kind of frustrating for me that a talented leftie as dönmez would work with kurz just to secure a safe seat and enrage his old party.

[Tender Branson]

Parliament will dissolve today and before going into summer recess, they will officially vote in favour of the new elections on October 15.

The parliament building is almost empty right now, because the 3-year-long renovation of the building will start later this month. The first session of the new parliamentary year 2017-18 will start in mid-September at the interim parliament in the Hofburg.

Yesterday, the Eurofighter investigation committee ended and Defense Minister Doskozil (SPÖ) said that the Eurofighters will be phased out by 2020, because the repairs are too costly. Austria might get some 15-20 Swedish Gripens or some US-made F-16s instead. All parties except the ÖVP have an intention to continue the Eurofighter investigation committee in September because some questions from the purchase under the ÖVP-FPÖ government (2000-2006) remain.

In the next 2 months, campaigning will be rather low-key. Major politicians will go on vacation. Kern and Strache for example will fly to Ibiza with their families for two weeks in late July. Kurz will vacation in Croatia and South Tyrol. Lunacek will fly to New Hampshire to meet her niece there. Felipe will fly to Mexico. And Strolz will vacation on some northern Italian beach.

[Tender Branson]

Parliament has just dissolved and voted for the elections on October 15 (only 2 Independents out of 183 MPs voted against).

Before the vote, there was a final debate in which the government (SPÖ, ÖVP) praised their achievements over the past 4 years (more than 190 laws have been passed), while the opposition (FPÖ, Greens, TS, NEOS) attacked the government as a failure on various topics.

The next parliamentary session will be on September 20.

http://derstandard.at/2000061246747/Abgesang-auf-Rot-Schwarz-zum-Abschied

[Tender Branson]

Very good background article by Prof. Anton Pelinka:

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/22697/how-austrian-politics-went-from-over-stability-to-unpredictability

[Tender Branson]

Peter Pilz is back in the game !

http://orf.at/stories/2399235/2399236

Chances are rising again that he'll present his own left-populist "movement" at the end of July.

For this, he has already told senior Green officials that he'll leave the Green parliamentary club on Monday and become an Independent MP until the election. Green parliamentary club leader Albert Steinhauser has already confirmed Pilz's plans in a video message.

The party colour of Pilz's list might be white for transparency and anti-corruption.

[Tender Branson]

Peter Pilz is back in the game !

http://orf.at/stories/2399235/2399236

Chances are rising again that he'll present his own left-populist "movement" at the end of July.

For this, he has already told senior Green officials that he'll leave the Green parliamentary club on Monday and become an Independent MP until the election. Green parliamentary club leader Albert Steinhauser has already confirmed Pilz's plans in a video message.

The party colour of Pilz's list might be white for transparency and anti-corruption.

Peter Pilz: an Austrian mix of Bernie Sanders, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Dewey (from Malcolm in the Middle)

[Tender Branson]

ÖVP-FPÖ coalitions don't necessarily have to be unpopular, as this new poll for Upper Austria shows:



Compared with the 2015 state elections, the ÖVP gains 4% while the FPÖ loses 2%. But the opposition parties also lose slightly.

81% of voters approve of the state ÖVP-FPÖ coalition, 69% approve of the new Governor Stelzer.

http://www.heute.at/oesterreich/oberoesterreich/story/-VP-in-Oberoesterreich-wieder-ueber-40-Prozent-44519182

[Tender Branson]

Karl Schnell, former FPÖ-leader in the state of Salzburg, will run his own list in the Oct. 15 election.

Schnell split with Strache and the FPÖ about two years ago, after a series of intrigues against him. In the meantime, he set up the FPS (Free Party of Salzburg).

In the election, he will run with the "Austrian Free Party - List Karl Schnell".

He won't have to collect the 2600 signatures to be on the ballot, because 2 independent (former FPÖ) MPs in parliament + 1 Team Stronach MP will enable the candidacy.



Schnell, who is also doctor in the tourist/ski town of Saalbach-Hinterglemm (about 20km away from here) - will likely get a moderate result here in the Pinzgau district (maybe 5%). In Salzburg state probably 1-2%, but virtually no support elsewhere.

You can refer to his splinter list as "FPÖ 2.0 - light"

http://derstandard.at/2000061312988/Karl-Schnell-tritt-bundesweit-bei-der-Nationalratswahl-an

[Tender Branson]

New Profil magazine poll about Strache as Chancellor and the FPÖ in government:

"Do you support or oppose Strache as Chancellor in an FPÖ-led government ?"

28% support
62% oppose

"Do you support or oppose the FPÖ being in the next government as junior partner ?"

41% support
48% oppose

* FPÖ being first and someone else as FPÖ-Chancellor was not asked, because Strache has always said that if the FPÖ wins the election, he wants to become Chancellor himself.

https://www.profil.at/oesterreich/umfrage-kanzler-strache-8231461

[Tender Branson]

With the August 18 deadline for parties/lists to submit enough signatures from voters or signatures from 3 MPs, this is what we can expect:

5 parties will definitely be on the ballot in all states: SPÖ, ÖVP, FPÖ, Greens, NEOS

2 new lists will almost definitely be (3 sigs from MPs): Peter Pilz (ex-Green), Karl Schnell (ex-FPÖ)

1 list will almost definitely be (2600 signatures from voters): KPÖ+ (= KPÖ and Young Greens)

8 other known lists need to collect 2600 signatures:

* G!LT (by comedian Roland Düringer)
* NBZ (a party of and for migrants, mostly Turks)
* Men's Party
* Socialist Left Party
* CPÖ (Christian Party)
* DA (Democratic Alternative)
* EU Exit Party or Auxit Party
* Robert Lugar's list (Lugar is a current Stronach MP, but it's not clear if he'll get another 2 sigs)

The Team Stronach as a party will not run again. Much like the BZÖ and the Pirate Party.

The leftist Wandel ("Change") party might run together with Peter Pilz.