Austria - 2019 Election National Council
Austrian lawmakers voted 26 May 2019 for a no-confidence motion against Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's government, marking the end of his People's Party's hold on power. The far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) — Kurz's former coalition ally — joined center-left Social Democrats and the leftist environmentalist Jetzt (Now) party in the motion against both Kurz and his government. Kurz's caretaker minority government, including experts and senior public servants, was sworn into office days earlier. The liberal NEOS party voted against the motion, saying it preferred to avoid further political instability. Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen was now expected a appoint a chancellor to form a government capable of garnering parliament's support until the next national election, slated for September 2019.
The Austrian parliament is composed of two chambers: the National Council (Nationalrat) with 183 members directly elected in national elections for a four year mandate; and the Federal Council (Bundesrat) with 62 members which are elected by the parliaments of Austria’s nine federal states (Bundesländer). The National Council is by far the more important chamber. While the Federal council can veto most resolutions passed by the National Council, in which case the resolutions go back to the National Council to be dealt with again, the National Council can override the Federal Council’s veto by activating a constitutional element called “Beharrungsbeschluss”.
Re-founded in the ruins of World War II, Austria’s governments had been based on a political conciliation named “Grand Coalition,” formed by the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and the clerical Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP). From the post-war years until the 1980s, these two parties together had more than two thirds of the votes. The ‘Proporz’ power-sharing system – the division of posts in the public sector, parastatals and government between the two major parties in the context of a pillarized political system – eroded ideological differences and created a fairly corrupt and nepotistic system of patronage and political immobilism.
By the mid-1980s, the two parties were different sides of the same coins and the Austrian political scene was ripe for the emergence of real alternatives. The conventional center-right and center-left parties declined in influence whereas the forces with far-right or far-left engagement have become more mainstream and appealed to larger masses. During the post-Cold War years the Austrian political scene got more diversified, with the emergence of the Green Party in the 1980s and the rise of the Freedom Party (FPÖ) under Jörg Haider. The winds of change started blowing in Austria 1999 elections when the FPO won 27% of the votes. On 01 February 2000, the ÖVP and FPÖ announced that the parties had reached agreement on a coalition government.
The most recent parliamentary elections were held in 2018. As in many European countries, the Austrian political scene had become rather polarised since the advent of populist parties such as the far-right FPÖ. The formation of the coalition government by ÖVP’s Sebastian Kurz and FPÖ’s Heinz-Christian Strache was in itself a phenomenon that characterized the democracy crisis in Austria. The Austrian coalition was seen as a test case for the viability of the far right to govern alongside more mainstream parties.
Austria's chancellor called 18 May 2019 for new elections, expected to be held in the fall, amid a political scandal involving a secret video that showed his vice chancellor offering contracts to a potential Russian benefactor in exchange for political donations. As thousands of protesters gathered in Vienna on May 18, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called for snap elections as soon as possible. Kurz said in a statement to the media "I have suggested to the president of the republic that new elections be carried out, at the earliest possible date," he said.
Kurz praised his own Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) for seeing through many of its campaign promises with the help of Strache's far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), but the chancellor said that "enough is enough" after the latest FPÖ embarrassment. "I promised voters I would remain true to myself, no matter what," Kurz said, declaring that he had withdrawn the ÖVP from the government. "I said I would always do what is right and what is necessary."
Kurz went on to describe a string of anti-Semitic scandals committed by FPÖ members, calling them "hard to swallow." He accused the Freedom Party of damaging the good work he had tried to do for the country. "This is not what our country needs. I am not in politics to hold this office...but to work for our beautiful country," Kurz said.
The decision came hours after the vice chancellor, Heinz-Christian Strache, announced his resignation from the government. Strache is with the far-right Freedom Party, which has been in a coalition with Kurz's Austrian People's Party. Norbert Hofer — who nearly won the Austrian presidency in 2016, now Austria's infrastructure minister — will replace Strache as Freedom Party leader.
The FPÖ was founded in 1956 by former Nazis. Since the late 1990s, however, the party has revamped itself to be more mainstream. Nevertheless, Strache has often acted as Kurz's go-between to Europe's most successful populist parties, such as Fidesz in Hungary and the League party in Italy.
In addition to an anti-immigration agenda and links to far-right extremists, the Freedom Party has been dogged by suspicions of cozying up to Russian interests. In 2016, Strache traveled to Moscow to sign a cooperation agreement between the Freedom Party and the Kremlin-backed political party, United Russia. And Austria’s foreign minister, also a Freedom Party member, invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend her wedding last August.
The video, published on May 17 by Der Spiegel magazine and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, reportedly shows Strache offering infrastructure contracts to a woman posing as a wealthy potential donor from Russia. In the video, the woman speaks Russian and identifies herself as the niece of a wealthy Russian businessman. The woman, who calls herself Alyona Makarova, says her uncle wants to buy a controlling interest in Austria's largest tabloid, the Kronen Zeitung. The newspaper could then be used to give the FPÖ favorable coverage. Later in the video, Strache calls journalists "the biggest whores on the planet."
In a clip of the video released by the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Der Spiegel, Strache tells the woman that if his party gains power, state contracts would be given to her supposed companies and no longer be awarded to Austrian construction giant Strabag. In the full-length video, he makes clear that the companies could "overcharge" for the work to boost profits, according to the German media outlets. He also suggests the possibility of breaking up Austria's betting monopoly to award licenses to the woman's affiliated entities.
The woman is unambiguous about the fact that the money came from dubious sources, according to Süddeutsche Zeitung and Der Spiegel. Strache and Gudenus, who is the FPÖ's parliamentary whip in the Nationalrat (National Council), appear to be unfazed by that admission. Instead, Strache suggests that the woman could funnel cash to his party through back channels, skirting Austria campaign finance laws.
Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen said 19 May 2019 that he recommends snap parliamentary elections be held in early September following a scandal that brought down the coalition government. "This new beginning should take place quickly, as quickly as the provisions of the Federal Constitution permit, so I plead for elections ... in September, if possible at the beginning of September," the president said.
Some 6.4 million Austrians were eligible to vote in the 29 September 2019 parliamentary elections. While immigration was the top voter concern during the previous election in 2017, surveys suggested that most of the voters were more concerned about climate change this time around. Pre-election opinion polls showed that concerns over climate helped the Greens surge from less than 4% in the last election, when they crashed out of parliament, to around 13% now. Given the reason the election was called, corruption in public life and party financing were also prominent themes in the campaign, as well as more bread-and-butter issues like social care.
Ex-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's People's Party (ÖVP) secured a large percentage of votes in Austria's snap parliamentary elections, according projected figures released just after polls closed at 5 p.m. (1500 UTC). Exit polls released by Austrian public broadcaster ORF showed Kurz's party projected to get 37.2%, an increase of 5.7% compared with the 2017 election. The far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) was set to lose 10 percentage points and could get 16%, a sign that a corruption scandal appeared to have damaged the party's reputation. The center-left Social Democrats were projected to lose 4.9 percentage points and receive 22%, the party's worst results since World War II.
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