Austrian Elections & Politics 5.0 (Burgenland state election - January 26)

[Tender Branson]

Preliminary* share of female MPs in the new parliament:

58% Greens (15)
48% SPÖ (19)
40% NEOS (6)
40% ÖVP (28)
16% FPÖ (5)

40% Total (73/183)

The current, outgoing parliament has 37% (68/183) female MPs.

* some elected candidates could still relinquish the chance to be seated.

What a shame that in an election in 2019, it's still not possible to have 52% women in parliament ... (especially the right-wing parties are to blame).

[Tender Branson]

Julia Herr, the leader of the left-extremist SJ/Young Socialists (the youth organisation of the SPÖ) and Austrian counterpart to the German Kevin Kühnert (JUSOS), has been elected to parliament.



© Herr's Facebook page

Frau Herr is an arch-left radical, who wants to nationalize banks, companies and the real-estate market and who wants to "move beyond capitalism".

The SPÖ needs a revolution to stop their slide in the polls and at elections, but I'm not sure people like her(r) are the answer ...

[Tender Branson]

Julia Herr, the leader of the left-extremist SJ/Young Socialists (the youth organisation of the SPÖ) and Austrian counterpart to the German Kevin Kühnert (JUSOS), has been elected to parliament.



© Herr's Facebook page

Frau Herr is an arch-left radical, who wants to nationalize banks, companies and the real-estate market and who wants to "move beyond capitalism".

The SPÖ needs a revolution to stop their slide in the polls and at elections, but I'm not sure people like her(r) are the answer ...

So the AOC of Austria or perhaps Jeremy Corbyn of Austria?  She sounds a little too far to the left if you ask me.  Although couldn't SPO and Greens merge perhaps for a stronger left as it seems not just in Austria but most Western countries, blue collar workers are ditching traditional social democratic parties, while it is more your urban younger voters even those with above average incomes who are embracing left of centre parties.

The center-left wouldn't be stronger though: everything the Greens gain, would be lost by the SPÖ in turn. Just like with ÖVP-FPÖ, what the ÖVP gains is lost by the FPÖ. You would have two 37% parties then with ÖVP and SPÖ+Greens+Pilz and you could only create a rightwing government or a grand coalition of ÖVP+merged Left.

[Tender Branson]

Austrian GDP will grow by 1.6% this year and 1.4% next year - according to new forecasts by the main domestic economic institutes (WIFO/IHS) today. That is much better than Germany this year (0.4%) or Italy (recessionist).

Unemployment will remain at 4.4% and there will be a budget surplus of 0.6% this year and 0.4% next year. Inflation is low at 1.6% and debt as a percentage of GDP will decline from 69% to 65% next year (down from the all-time-high of 87% in 2016).

65% debt would be back to pre-financial-crisis-levels (2007).

https://orf.at/stories/3139702

[Tender Branson]

Cool maps, but NEOS is only ca. 50/50 Right vs. Left

[Tender Branson]

Thanks for posting my images without credit

I thought that wasn’t needed because the credit is already in the pictures ...

[Tender Branson]

Austrian GDP will grow by 1.6% this year and 1.4% next year - according to new forecasts by the main domestic economic institutes (WIFO/IHS) today. That is much better than Germany this year (0.4%) or Italy (recessionist).

Unemployment will remain at 4.4% and there will be a budget surplus of 0.6% this year and 0.4% next year. Inflation is low at 1.6% and debt as a percentage of GDP will decline from 69% to 65% next year (down from the all-time-high of 87% in 2016).

65% debt would be back to pre-financial-crisis-levels (2007).

https://orf.at/stories/3139702

That's all around decent economic figure, did the right coalition had any major reforms the past two years to drive economy forward?

Yes, several.

They introduced a child tax credit (but which didn’t lead to more kids so far), so you can assume that parents invested the additional money into existing kids and that increased consumption.

They lowered taxes on the tourism industry (see how the tourist regions in the West strongly trended ÖVP, because it was their proposal).

And for the first time in 50 years, they balanced the budget (which was obviously aided by the good economy, which was already good before ÖVP-FPÖ took office).

[Tender Branson]

Julia Herr, the leader of the left-extremist SJ/Young Socialists (the youth organisation of the SPÖ) and Austrian counterpart to the German Kevin Kühnert (JUSOS), has been elected to parliament.

Frau Herr is an arch-left radical, who wants to nationalize banks, companies and the real-estate market and who wants to "move beyond capitalism".

Her Wikipedia page says that:

Nationalratswahl 2019

Am 10. Juli 2019 wurde bekannt gegeben, dass Julia Herr am 7. Listenplatz der SPÖ Bundesliste kandidieren wird.

Weiters wurde Herr 2019 Spitzenkandidatin in Penzing und Listenzweite im Regionalwahlkreis Wien-Süd-West.

Google translates this as saying that she was 7th on the national list.

What is a "Spitzenkandidatin" since Penzing is a district in Vienna, and smaller than the RED of Vienna South-West where she was second on the list. But SPO only elected one in Vienna Southwest, and five nationally. How/why was she elected?

Are there sample ballots on-line and a source for all the party lists.

This 3-tier system is a bit complicated. I wish they would post it online.

But:

Bis zuletzt musste die Chefin der Sozialistischen Jugend (SJ), Julia Herr, um ihr Mandat bangen. Nach Auszählung der restlichen Stimmen am Donnerstag ist ihr Einzug nun fix. Grund dafür ist, dass die SPÖ in Wien ein Landesmandat verlor, auf Bundesebene allerdings von vier auf fünf Sitzplätze gekommen ist.

After all postal ballots were counted, the SPÖ received an even worse result in Vienna and lost one of their state seats. The SPÖ got an additional 5th for the federal list though, where Herr is benefitting now. She was only ranked 7th on the SPÖ's federal list, but candidates can choose which seat to take, either the R.E.D., state or federal seat. In which case other candidates benefit from their choices. Or lose out.

[Tender Branson]

What are some of the more extreme policies Julia Herr promotes.  Does she want to nationalize a whole bunch of industries?  How about for taxes, how does she think they should go.  Is she one of those who favours a top marginal rate of 90% like some on the left do (Austria's top rate is 55% which is I believe in the top 5 highest on earth right now).  Also how about for welfare state, although to be fair unlike English speaking countries Austria has a far more generous one so may not sound so radical.

That being said Jeremy Corbyn came shockingly close to winning in 2017 and in the US Bernie Sanders did surprisingly well.  But both of those countries have much higher levels of inequality than Austria does thus easier to sell to those upset with status quo.  And even those two didn't win and its questionable if Sanders would have won in a general election and its quite possible in UK, Labour might have won outright with a more moderate leader.  I would though think with SPO they should probably have a more urban focus  since not sure if good enough, but if they dominated urban areas and won the suburbs, that would seem the most obvious path to power.  But maybe I have too much of Anglo-Saxon country bias as not sure if this urban goes left, rural goes right and suburbs go with the winner works in Austria.

70%

https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000097916483/widerstand-gegen-sinkende-steuern-fuer-reiche-nimmt-zu

And yeah, she wants to nationalize a whole bunch of companies (steel, mining, construction) and banks. Besides that, she's strongly open borders, pro-feminism, anti-free trade and strongly pro-environmentalist:

https://twitter.com/frauherr/status/1159406965682049024

The thing is that her radical policies are only a niché program in Austria, appealing only to some 20% far-leftists (not even the old SPÖ-voters are happy with it), while 80% of Austria is more right-wing or certainly not as left as one might think. As you said, most Austrians are well off, the GINI-coefficient (= wealth inequality) is much lower than in Anglo countries and therefore ultra-leftist views are much less appealing than for Warren/Sanders or Corbyn voters.

[Tender Branson]

Manfred Haimbuchner, head of the important Upper Austria FPÖ, said that the FPÖ needs to terminate their contract with Putin's "United Russia" party, to become a credible patriotic party again.

[Tender Branson]

Interesting:

Every 20th Green voter is a former FPÖ voter from 2017.

32.000 former FPÖ voters switched over to the Greens.

[Tender Branson]

A new "Profil" magazine poll shows that following the federal election, Austrians prefer a continuation of ÖVP-FPÖ (23%), but when you add support for "I can live with [insert coalition]", then ÖVP-Greens is the coalition with the most support (57%):




"I prefer a [...] coalition." => "I can live with a [...] coalition." => "I oppose a [...] coalition."

[Tender Branson]

Oryx, would it be possible to create a 2017 -> 2019 ÖVP+FPÖ rightwing trend map of the districts, relative to the national results ?

For example ÖVP+FPÖ lost 4% Austria-wide, but in my district ÖVP+FPÖ gained 0.2% - meaning it trended much more rightwing. It probably had the strongest rightwing trend of all 116 districts.

[Tender Branson]

Wikipedia has an image for the 2017 election. Since it is an image, I can't translate it.

Why is column 5 blank?

Team Stronach didn't run again.

Innsbruck 7A has two mandates but the RED lists have up to 12 names. Why?

Preference votes. But as you said below, not many voters use them.

Why are birth years included with candidate names?

Their titles and professions are too.

The spaces for the federal list and regional list appear to be write-in spaces. True? OK, I found a brochure that says that you can also use the serial number. If one was not a wonk how would you know what serial number to use?

Yes, write-in spaces. Every postal voter gets this brochure with the numbers and names on. In each voter precinct, there's a brochure as well to look at all the candidates and their numbers.

What do these mean? Why are they shown in the election results?

   Wahlkarten - Teil 1
   Wahlkarten - Teil 2
   Wahlkarten gesamt

Results for postal ballots. Teil 1 is the 1st part, counted on Monday. Teil 2 is the 2nd smaller part on Thursday. And gesamt means combined.

I found the lists (on the BMI site). Why does SPO have 409 candidates on their national list, but OVP only 100?

There is no limit on candidates in theory. But the ÖVP seems to have capped them at 100.

On the roster of national lists, it is indicated whether they are also on a state or RED list. Would an ordinary Austrian know their state number or regional list number-letter?

Theoretically yes (as I posted above, because the brochures with candidates are available to any voter). But in reality, nobody really cares about handing out preference votes.

I also found the preference results for 2017. It appears that less than 10% bother with the national list, and that among those that do overwhelmingly choose the party leader. Why bother. Does it sometimes have an effect in local elections?

It has virtually no effect, because nobody really uses preference votes.

Google Translate when translating the number "8" from German to English translates it as "8th". Is this a quirk or feature of Google translate?

No clue.

I was curious why Burgenland (where Elisabeth Herr was born) is even a state. I see from Wikipedia that this is a historical accident from prior to WW I. Are there still viable Maygar and Croat minorities? It would seem like it would be hard to maintain breeding populations. When there were arranged marriages, perhaps you could find a second-cousin in Budapest, but now it would seem that you would tend to move to Budapest and become a Hungarian, or move to Vienna and become assimilated, with fewer social or work contacts.

There is a small minority there, but are 100% Austrians now after 100 years. Some of them still speak the Hungarian or Croat language and have Hungarian/Croat sounding last names. The minority groups are protected under the Austrian constitution by the way.

[Tender Branson]

President Van der Bellen will officially instruct Kurz to form his new government tomorrow at 10am:

https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000109486130/bundespraesident-erteilt-kurz-regierungsbildungsauftrag

Kurz is expected to start exploratory talks with all party leaders and representatives the coming week, starting with the SPÖ, then the FPÖ, then the Greens and finally with NEOS.

[Tender Branson]

Are there any numbers on what OVP voters prefer?

They are pretty mixed.

But they will shift along with what Kurz proposes. If Kurz says he wants ÖVP-Greens, voters will follow suit.

Question for everyone, is Austria 2019 the best Green performance in any top-level national parliamentary election anywhere?

Ie excluding presidential elections (eg VdB) and also Euro-elections.

I think the only other countries in contention might be Germany and Australia?

Thanks

In Luxemburg, the Greens got 15.1% last year.

[Tender Branson]

Awesome !

Thanks for creating this rightwing (ÖVP+FPÖ+ 2017 FLÖ) trend map. I already suspected that with the inclusion of FLÖ in 2017, my district (Zell am See) would not have the only swing towards the Right among the 116 districts that I mentioned before.

Now, all 116 districts swung "left". But my district and Southern Salzburg as well as Tyrol and the Waldviertel had the smallest swings to the Left, because the large ÖVP gains largely made up for all the FPÖ losses.

The trend map also looks like one would expect from a random US state: urban/suburban areas trended left, while most rural areas trended right.

So ÖVP in Ost-tyrol were dead souls. Despite giving huge numbers for the party, they did not get a seat in parliament.

That's correct election-wise. East Tyrol delivered strongly for the ÖVP, but is also by far the smallest regional electoral district, meaning there's no direct seat for the ÖVP out of there.

On the other hand, it is likely that Margarete Schramböck will become a cabinet member again in the new coalition and if she does, her seat will become vacant and the next on the list (someone from East Tyrol in this case) will enter parliament to replace her.

https://www.dolomitenstadt.at/2019/09/29/osttirol-jubel-bei-der-oevp-und-eine-koalitionsansage

[Tender Branson]

President Van der Bellen will officially instruct Kurz to form his new government tomorrow at 10am:

https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000109486130/bundespraesident-erteilt-kurz-regierungsbildungsauftrag

Kurz to meet SPÖ/FPÖ tomorrow and Greens/NEOS on Wednesday.

https://orf.at/stories/3139981

[Tender Branson]

So, the East Tyrolians did not simply use preference vote in order to get representation.

The vast majority of voters do not care about preference votes.

They are only voting for a party and don’t mind who is representing them.

[Tender Branson]

The FPÖ has just voted to deny Philippa Strache a seat in parliament.

https://kurier.at/politik/inland/kein-nationalrats-mandat-fuer-philippa-strache/400640495

In recent days, more and more important people in the FPÖ said they wanted a complete reset for the party and that’s only possible without the Straches.

[Tender Branson]

I also like the fact that Vorarlberg in the West had one of the biggest Left trends, while just over the state border in Tyrol ... the district Landeck had one of the two strongest rightwing trends in the country.

[Tender Branson]

The FPÖ has just voted to deny Philippa Strache a seat in parliament.

https://kurier.at/politik/inland/kein-nationalrats-mandat-fuer-philippa-strache/400640495

In recent days, more and more important people in the FPÖ said they wanted a complete reset for the party and that’s only possible without the Straches.

It seems to be very complicated.

https://orf.at/stories/3140140/

No matter if she gets her seat or not (the Vienna state election commission will probably decide tomorrow), about 5% of voters would definitely back a new HC Strache List and another 11% would probably vote for it.

https://www.heute.at/s/bis-zu-16-prozent-wurden-wieder-strache-wahlen-43730975

[Tender Branson]

The FPÖ has just voted to deny Philippa Strache a seat in parliament.

https://kurier.at/politik/inland/kein-nationalrats-mandat-fuer-philippa-strache/400640495

In recent days, more and more important people in the FPÖ said they wanted a complete reset for the party and that’s only possible without the Straches.

It seems to be very complicated.

https://orf.at/stories/3140140/

The Vienna election commission has dealt a blow to the FPÖ and awarded the seat to Philippa Strache today, after consulting the federal election commission and Interior Ministry. The FPÖ's actions to strip her from her seat was not allowed under Austrian election law (something that H.C. Strache also said was not legal in a Facebook post).

There are now 2 options for Philippa Strache:

A) she can take the seat, but will not become a member of the FPÖ parliamentary group, because they don't want her and she will be expelled - becoming an Independent MP.

B) she refuses to take the seat and the next on the list will replace her.

https://orf.at/stories/3140287/

[Tender Branson]

Yesterday, SPÖ's Hermione Granger and FPÖ's Norbert Hofer talked with Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP), each for one hour.

During these first exploration talks, both told Kurz their demands and Rendi-Wagner said that the climate between Kurz and her was pretty good.

Hofer told Kurz that "he has a lot of things to fix in his party right now" and told him that he still prepares the FPÖ for opposition. But, if all coalition talks with other parties fail, then the FPÖ could vote again on further talks.

The talks with NEOS today lasted more than 2 hours, with NEOS-leader Meinl-Reisinger deploying a lot of demands to Kurz.

The talk between Kurz and Kogler (Greens) has just started ...

[Tender Branson]

All 4 exploration talks with Kurz are now over and all except the FPÖ are ready to go into deep coalition talks.

Kurz will either announce another round of exploration talks or his partner(s) of choice for the coalition talks soon.