The 2012 Austrian Election Interlude: The rise of Frank Stronach and more ...

[Flocke]

From last week's market poll

• Politics in Austria is...
  ...exciting 43
  ...boring 57
  
  
• The Political System in Austria...
  ...could be optimized with small reforms 43
  ...needs a quasi-revolution 57
  
  
• If it were possible, would you reelect the current government?
  Yes 18
  No 53
  
  
• Should the following parties be included in the next government?
  
  SPÖ
  Yes 63
  No 32
  
  ÖVP
  Yes 59
  No 31
  
  FPÖ
  Yes 37
  No 55
  
  Greens
  Yes 63
  No 29
  
  BZÖ
  Yes 24
  No 66
  
  Pirates
  Yes 33
  No 59
  
  Party of Frank Stronach
  Yes 29
  No 61
  
  
• Do you know what the Pirate Party stands for?
  Yes 36
  No 64
  
  
• Do you know what Frank Stronach stands for?
  Yes 38
  No 62
  

[Flocke]

Welcome Flocke, where are you from ?

I'm from Zell am See in Salzburg.

Graz

BTW this thread seems to be one of the best places to find recent polls on Austria. English or German.

[Flocke]

If the Pirates let the FPO become the largest party, will Pirate voters realise how innane their opinion is?

Strong Pirates are the only chance to prevent a FPÖ/ÖVP majority. German Pirates may be bad for Red-Green, but in Austria they wouldn't get enough votes anyway.

[Flocke]

There is a new poll from Humaninstitut

FPÖ 26%
SPÖ 25%
ÖVP 20%
Greens 9%
BZÖ 4%
Pirates and new parties 16%

Are you satisfied with what parties in parliament have to offer?
Yes 20% No 64%

Are Pirates and new platforms an alternative?
good alternative 46%
not much of an alternative 32%
no alternative 22%

But I wouldn't take it too serious, IMHO Humaninstitut is by far the worst pollster.

Did you come here to this Forum because of my poll entries on the German Wikipedia ?

There were links to international elections on wahlrecht.de, I think. And I remembered this site, when it was mentioned in a video about the Geography of United States Elections.

BTW: What are your political leanings in Austria and the US ? I'm voting for Greens and SPÖ in Austria and would consider myself a liberal/socialist Democrat in the US.

At federal level: Greens, for the lack of better options. I would consider voting SPÖ, if I could cast a Vorzugsstimme for a Sektion 8 member, but Faymann, Rudas and Niko Pelinka...

Yeah, but the Austrian Pirates still have huge organisational problems, no money and no programme. They also have to collect 2300 signatures to be on the ballot next year. And they have to hope that the Pirate support doesn't collapse in the next year.

People would immediately stop critcising German Pirates, if they knew their Austrian counterparts.(Did you read Der Standard's  "Echte Piraten dürfen nicht raufen"?)

Getting enough signatures in Austria is hard, but it shouldn't be a problem, when you are polling over 4%. I still think they can do even better than in Germany, because disappointment with the traditional parties is much higher here. Although their chances are best, if voters assume, that they are just like German Pirates.

[Flocke]

The Black-Green coalition in Graz broke up today.

Mayor Nagl (ÖVP) wanted a referendum for a land purchase by the end on June, the Greens, like all other parties opposed the date, and favored September.

The next election is planned for January 2013, but a snap election after the summer is possible.

last poll from April (see page 55)

ÖVP 34%
FPÖ 16%
SPÖ 15%
Greens 14%
KPÖ 12%
Others (Pirates, BZÖ) 9%

[Flocke]

Tyrol state poll by Karmasin (actually the same pollster as Gallup with a different name, Karmasin is a franchise holder)

ÖVP 40%
FPÖ 17%
SPÖ 16%
Greens 13%
Dinkhauser's list 8%
Pirates 4%
Gurgiser's list 2%

Vote for Governor (hypothetical)
Günther Platter (ÖVP, current governor) 31%
Karl-Heinz Töchterle (ÖVP, federal minister of science) 16%
Christine Oppitz-Plörer (For Innsbruck, Innsbruck mayor) 14%
Fritz Dinkhauser 10%
Hannes Gschwentner (SPÖ) 7%
Gebi Mair (Greens) 3%
Others (ÖVP) 12%
Others (SPÖ) 4%
Others (Greens) 3%

Remarkable result for a conservative stronghold:

Future of the Hypo Tyrol Bank
41% Keep it 100% state property
26% The State of Tyrol should keep the majority of shares
22% Privatization

Pirates 4%. Which pirates? The Pirate Party Tyrol was the former state organization of the Austrian Pirates until they where excluded in 2011. And Andreas Ofer, who won the seat in Innsbruck, lost his position as a leader of the Tyrolian Pirates, at a party convention, which in his opinion wasn't legally summoned.

Dinkhauser is a former ÖVP member, and Gurgiser won a seat on Dinkhauser's list. Another ÖVP-splinter is on it's way, "For Innsbruck", who won the mayoral election in the state's capital. They used to to act only at local level, and their founder became a ÖVP State Governor. But that has changed since they decided to form a government with SPÖ and Greens. "For Innsbruck" members lost all their positions within the state's ÖVP. There are rumors that they could participate in the state elections next year, or even at federal level as a liberal-conservative party.

Governor Platter had an awkward visit at the  Austrian Soccer National Team's training camp, when he began talking in English with David Alaba, Austria's footballer of the year 2011, born to a Nigerian father and a Filipino mother. The Bayern Munich player responded, "You can talk German to me, I'am an Austrian". Platter later apologized, "I'm no soccer expert". (But to pretend that was the whole point of the visit)

Martin Graf fallout

Martin Graf (FPÖ), Third President of the National Council, elected with votes from SPÖ and ÖVP despite of being a member f Burschenschaft Olympia a right-wing fraternity, that invites people like David Irving and a songwriter, famous for songs like "With 6 million Jews the fun just begins". He apparently swindled a 90-year old lady. She was convinced to bring all her assets into a foundation and make Graf the head of it. He used this foundation to buy a building in an upper-class district, in which "Cafe-Restaurant Graf" is located. The name is no coincidence, it's operated by his brother and he himself holds shares. The rent is not always paid in time, but the foundation has been very generous, at least to them. The former millionaire got a payout of 5000 Euros in 2011, and not a single cent in 2012.

Weren't there problems already before in the Black-Green coalitions regarding the Umweltzone and the Murkraftwerk ?

So, who will be the winners of this ? FPÖ, KPÖ and Pirates ? Even though I doubt that the FPÖ will come anywhere close to the 27% they got in Graz in 1998 ...

Whoever is able to motivate non-voters, as there were a lot of them in 2008 and maybe even more in the next election. So FPÖ, KPÖ and Pirates are a good guess, sooner elections would favor ÖVP, later SPÖ. In 1998 the city FPÖ was much more moderate than the federal party, but the last of those left with Winter's Mohamed remarks.
The chairman of the SPÖ group in the city council is openly talking about appointments they could get out of this situation, and he changed his opinion on the referendum within almost 12 hours. Party head Martina Schröck is not very pleased about this and acts more reversed. There are also tensions within ÖVP, where some believe the decision was made by a Nagl adviser and head of an advertising agency. The alternative version is, that SPÖ State Governor Voves and his ÖVP deputy are acting from behind. They fear a hard SPÖ vs. ÖVP confrontation in Graz could hurt the image of their successful partnership. In addition an election in Graz 2012 makes it more likely that Nagl stands in the 2015 state elections. Voves' likely successor Bettina Vollath and Nagl know each other since their scouting days, so there is the hope the coalition could keep on working without much frictions. That's what Kleine Zeitung, the major newspaper in Styria is writing, who are surprisingly unbiased towards Nagl.
Murkraftwerk: I think there are enough signatures for a referendum about the hydro-electrical power plant to take place.
Umweltzone: Is supported by Voves/Schützenhöfer and was promoted by Nagl. Nevertheless he named it as one of his reasons.