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

[palandio]

The Young Greens (who got kicked out of the Green Party a while ago) will run on a joint platform with the Communists, called "KPÖ Plus":



If the Young Greens and their voters really abandon the Greens for the KPÖ on election day too, "KPÖ Plus" could get some 2% instead of 1%. And the Green Party could drop further towards 7%.

http://derstandard.at/2000059808686/Junge-Gruene-treten-mit-KPOe-bei-Nationalratswahl-an

The national leadership of the Young Greens are one of these peculiar groups who I would suspect to have a net negative electoral effect when running together with other parties.

[palandio]

The chances that the Greens are blowing up and split into 2 lists for the election are growing daily:

http://diepresse.com/home/innenpolitik/5243121/Peter-Pilz-zu-eigener-Liste_Ja-ich-will

Yesterday, powerful long-time Green MP Peter Pilz (who was ousted by the Green delegates at their convention last weekend) said he was leaning in favour of creating his own list with a few other MPs who got ousted.

So, we basically could get 2 Greens with 3.5% each and out of parliament ...

And if NEOS fumbles the election too, we'd be left with only 3 parties in parliament ...

I think that if Pilz succeeds in finding strong running mates (preferably including ex-SPÖ members and women) and campaigns on the right mix of left-wing populism, ecology, government transparency and anti-(islamist)-extremism, he could attract a huge bunch of voters who wouldn't vote for the Greens in their current state anyways, from abstention, SPÖ, NEOS and even FPÖ. This could of course become an epic failure for both Greens and Pilz+, but I see enough potential to get more votes with two distinct political brands.

[palandio]

"that this is a very common Jewish name"

You're not quoting Hübner here, but the Standard article. And the Standard journalist is completely correct because Kohn is a common Jewish name.

As you are saying, calling him Kohn was used in the 30s (by Carl Schmitt and others) as a smear to reduce Hans Kelsen onto his Jewishness. This smear was revived in the 60s by the infamous professor Taras Borodajkewycz who remains quite popular in the Austrian far-right academic scene. You can assume that at least some people at the gathering were aware of the Carl Schmitt/Borodajkewycz quote as some kind of running gag.

The thing about these quotes is often that when isolated they can seem accidental and "innocent". But for example Hübner in the same speech also said that chancellor Kern "has excellent links with the freemason scene" and that Austrian freemasonry is "colored neither Protestant nor Catholic but differently". And so on, and so on. Speeches of this type are full of these codes. This is why I often have mixed feelings about the public outcry over single quotes. The risk is that many people might say "ok, that's a weird thing to say. But it could be explained by [whatever]. Isn't it exaggerated to start a witchhunt over two words like this? To hell with the political correctness!"

[palandio]

Not too relevant, but still hilarious:

Roland Düringer's G!LT list managed to get on the ballot in all states. The stated aim is to be an art project that represents people who would not vote otherwise, in parliament. The order of candidates on the list was decided by random and the first place went to 70-year-old Günther Lassi. Now some people looked into who Lassi is, and he is some weird esoterics guy who posts on his website under the pseudonym "Merlin". Among the many texts linked on his website there were among others the Protocols of the Elders of Zion including a statement that the claims that they are forged was debunked already in the 30s... The Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstands had already asked him two years ago to take the link from his website. After yesterday's public uproar, Günther 'Merlin' Lassi said that he is strictly against fascism and that among the many texts linked on his website there are several that are critical of fascism. (Imho being against 'fascism' or what you perceive to be fascism can be perfectly combined with being an anti-semitic conspiracy theorist, but what do I know...) Other links on the website were for example to Freeman Austria, a tin-foil-hat anti-state lunatic. After some continued outrage, today Lassi announced that he would not take his seat if elected. (The lists cannot be changed anymore.)

http://derstandard.at/2000063327008/Guenther-Lassi-Merlin-der-nur-bedingt-gueltige-Zufallskandidat

Quite scary that as soon as some "alternative" list comes up, you run into all these freaks. (Düringer himself seems to be questionable to a certain degree, too.)

[palandio]

If I were Austrian, I would probably be undecided between SPÖ and Pilz. What are your reasons to back SPÖ over Pilz, Tender?

[palandio]

Has there maybe been some kind of Bradley effect in favor of the scandal-plagued SPÖ that seems to fare better than expected?

[palandio]

 3.3% Greens (will rise, but it will be a cliffhanger if they make the 4% threshold)

Given that there are only ca. 800,000 postal votes vs. ca. 4.3 million precinct votes, the Green vote share of the postal votes would have to be more than double their vote share in the precincts. So I think that it is almost safe to assume that they are out.

[palandio]

I find it more likely that the FPÖ loses more due to postal votes than the ÖVP wins and that therefore one seat would go from the FPÖ toward SPÖ, NEOS or PILZ.

[palandio]

Postal ballots are counted today, but the results will only be published at 10:30 pm CET or later.

Ballots cast outside their original regional constituency (which are probably less than 100,000) will be counted on Thursday, hence the final result will be published on Thursday evening. Keep in mind that the demographics that cast a ballot outside their own constituency tend to be very different, often university students etc., so it might be wise to wait for them, even though they are very few.

[palandio]

[...]
2.) Are Peter Pilz' political views (and that's his real name - wow) comparable with Boris Palmer's or Oswald Metzger's?

[...]
2. Don't know about Palmer and Metzger's views really.

Metzger was/is fiscally/economically conservative.
Palmer yesterday was a guest in the German talkshow hart aber fair, where he stated that Pilz was much more left-wing on welfare and economic issues than he (Palmer) himself.

Altogether I would say that Pilz is further to the left than Metzger and Palmer on most issues, particularly welfare/economy. But at the same time he managed to appeal to some "realo Green" voters better than the Greens because they could culturally identify better with him than with the original Greens.

[palandio]

Some of the areas Rob mentioned are not rural in the sense of historically agricultural.
Upper Styria's population is concentrated in the Mürz valley, which is historically heavily industrial (steel, railway, mining).
Linz and its suburbs have steel and other heavy industry as well.
The Hallstatt area has a mining tradition plus a protestant minority (which are historically related and both bad for the ÖVP).

But Tender is right. Electoral patterns go back at least 100 years, for SPÖ (SDAPDÖ), ÖVP (Christian Socials) and FPÖ (German Nationals, Rural Federation).

[palandio]

The Young Greens were formed out of the merger of several regional split-offs from the Green-Alternative Youth. In 2011 the Young Greens were recognized by the Greens as their official youth organization instead of the Green-Alternative Youth, which had drifted into the far-left angle over the years.
In 2016 several regional chapters split from the student organization Green and alternative students (GRAS). They formed the Green students and were supported by the Young Greens. The Greens told the Young Greens not to support any list against the GRAS in university elections. Tensions escalated and in March 30, 2017 the Young Greens got expelled as the official party youth organization.
My take: This episode shows lack of diplomacy and judgement by former Green chairwoman Eva Glawischnig, but I do not have any compassion for the splitters and egotists in the leadership of the Young Greens. They got what they deserved and are a net negative for every political organization.

[palandio]

[...]
2.) Are Peter Pilz' political views (and that's his real name - wow) comparable with Boris Palmer's or Oswald Metzger's?

[...]
2. Don't know about Palmer and Metzger's views really.

Metzger was/is fiscally/economically conservative.
Palmer yesterday was a guest in the German talkshow hart aber fair, where he stated that Pilz was much more left-wing on welfare and economic issues than he (Palmer) himself.

Altogether I would say that Pilz is further to the left than Metzger and Palmer on most issues, particularly welfare/economy. But at the same time he managed to appeal to some "realo Green" voters better than the Greens because they could culturally identify better with him than with the original Greens.

Exactly. Palmer is regularly attacked by the Antifa. that terrorist organization even managed to have his FB shut down for a short time because he used the word Mohrenkopf.
In May, he took a pic of a group of refugees waiting at a train station, who didn't buy a ticket. Later they were caught dodging the fare. Palmer uploaded the pic on FB, commenting with the words if it is racists to "describe that traveling by train has changed in the last years" and if it is "xenophobic to feel uneasy by doing so".

Link to focus.de

He also wrote a book called We cannot help everybody, which was heavily criticized by his Green party colleagues, and just recently he wrote a commentary on The European in which he stated that family reunification of refugees would lead to a decrease in quality of education and that that in return would lead to less acceptance of the welcoming culture among middle-class intellectuals.

http://www.theeuropean.de/boris-palmer/12954-qualitaetsproblem-in-grundschulen-durch-fluechtlinge

Yes, I know about Palmer's political views on unrestricted immigration. I thought your question was aimed at a more comprehensive picture. Regarding immigration, Pilz wrote an internal discussion paper (Austria first) in 2016 which was leaked to the press by some Greens a few weeks before the recent election and then promoted as representing the official Pilz List position by Pilz and his list themselves. The paper is quite to the right of the Green consensus. I think that on immigration Pilz and Palmer are not too far apart, what separates them is that economically Pilz is much further to the left.