Austria - Politics
Since 1955, Austria has enjoyed political stability. A Socialist elder statesman, Dr. Karl Renner, organized an Austrian administration in the aftermath of the war, and the country held general elections in November 1945. All three major parties--the conservative People's Party (OVP), the Socialists (later Social Democratic Party or SPO), and Communists--governed until 1947, when the Communists left the government. The OVP then led a governing coalition with the SPO that governed until 1966.
In the National Council (Nationalrat) 183 members are elected through an open-list proportional representation system to serve 5-year terms. There are 9 multi-member constituencies corresponding to each of the states. Each of these is subdivided into smaller, regional constituencies, of which there are 43 in total. Each party fields regional, state, and national lists of candidates. Each voter gets one ballot on which she votes for one party and may express candidate preferences within that party's regional and state-level lists. Seat allocation proceeds in three stages.
First, regional seats are allocated (d'Hondt method). Second, provincial seat allocations are calculated, the sums of parties regional seats within each province are subtracted from these totals, and seats are allocated accordingly (d'Hondt method). Third, this process repeats at the national level (Hare method), where party lists are closed. Parties must win at least one seat each in a regional constituency to qualify for seats at the state and national levels. Additionally, any candidate who receives at least one-sixth of her party’s votes is automatically awarded a seat. There is a 4 percent threshold for parties to gain representation, although a party that fails to reach this mark may still gain representation if it wins at least one seat in a regional election.
Between 1970 and 1999, the SPO governed the country either alone or with junior coalition partners. In 1999, the OVP formed a coalition with the right-wing, populist Freedom Party (FPO). The SPO, which was the strongest party in the 1999 elections, and the Greens formed the opposition. The FPO had gained support because of populist tactics, and many feared it would represent right-wing extremism. As a result, the European Union (EU) imposed a series of sanctions on Austria. The U.S. did not join the sanctions formally, but together with Israel, as well as various other countries, also reduced contacts with the Austrian Government. After a 6-month period of close observation, the EU lifted sanctions, and the U.S. revised its contacts policy.
In the 2002 elections, the OVP became the largest party, and the FPO's strength declined by more than half. Nevertheless, the OVP renewed its coalition with the FPO in February 2003. In national elections in October 2006, the SPO became the largest party, edging out the OVP. On January 11, 2007, an SPO-led “grand coalition” took office, with the OVP as junior partner. In July 2008, following months of dispute between the ruling parties, the coalition collapsed when Vice Chancellor Wilhelm Molterer (OVP) called for early elections. New elections were held on September 28, 2008, and resulted in the formation of another “grand coalition” between the SPO and OVP.
The Social Democratic Party traditionally draws its constituency from blue- and white-collar workers. Accordingly, much of its strength lies in urban and industrialized areas. In the 2008 national elections, it garnered 29.7% of the vote. In the past, the SPO advocated state involvement in Austria's key industries, the extension of social security benefits, and a full-employment policy. Beginning in the mid-1980s, it shifted its focus to free market-oriented economic policies, balancing the federal budget, and European Union membership. Following the 2008 financial crisis, the SPO began advocating a tax on global financial transactions and a solidarity tax from Austrian banks that had been bailed out by the government during the crisis.
The People's Party advocates conservative financial policies and privatization of much of Austria's nationalized industry. It finds support from farmers, large and small business owners, and some lay Catholic groups, mostly in the rural regions of Austria. In 2008, it received 25.6% of the vote. The Greens won 9.8% of the vote in 2008, losing ground to become the smallest party in parliament.
Austria’s rightist Freedom Party (FPO) saw its popularity grow in a series of national and state elections since 2006. In the 2008 elections, the FPO earned 18% of the vote, up from 11% in 2006. The late Joerg Haider, the former leader of the FPO, split from the party in 2005 to form the Alliance-Future-Austria (BZO). While the BZO barely managed to enter parliament in 2006 with 4.1% of the vote, Haider led his new party to a surprising 10.7% in national elections in 2008. Shortly afterwards Haider died in a car crash, and the BZO subsequently saw some of its deputies return to the FPO as the party’s political fortunes declined again.
Federal President Heinz Fischer was reelected for a second term on April 25, 2010.
On 29 September 2013 elections, the Social Democrats finished with 26.8%, followed by the People's Party with 24.0%. Punished by voters tired of political squabbling and policy paralysis, both parties stumbled to their worst electoral results since World War 2 while the anti-immigrant Freedom Party (FPO) got more than a fifth of the seats in parliament.
Austria's parliamentary elections yielded the following distribution of votes (in brackets the allocation of the 183 mandates): SPÖ (Social Democrats) 26.8% (52); ÖVP (People's Party) 24.0% (47), FPÖ (Freedom Party) 20.5% (40); Greens 12.4% ( 24); Team Stronach 5.7% (11) and NEOS 5.0% (9). Both parties of the incumbent grand coalition of SPÖ and ÖVP lost some percentage points which migrated to the eurosceptic FPÖ but also to the Greens. Team Stronach benefited from BZÖ (Bündnis Zukunft Österreich) dissidents, while NEOS is a newcomer to the Austrian Parliament. BZÖ did not pass the required 4.0% threshold and hence is not represented in the new Austrian Parliament anymore.
Possible coalitions included a renewed grand coalition of SPÖ and ÖVP with a smaller parliamentary majority than previously (99 mandates), a coalition between the ÖVP, FPÖ and Team Stronach (98 mandates) as well as a coalition between the SPÖ and FPÖ (92 mandates).
Austria's two main pro-European parties reached an agreement 11 December 2013 to form a new government following more than two months of negotiations. After receiving a narrow majority in the September 2013 election, the center-left Social Democrats and the center-right People's Party once again joined in a grand coalition government, a model that had dominated Austria's postwar history.
Austria's top diplomat Alexander Schallenberg took over as chancellor on 11 October 2021 as the ruling party tried to emerge from a corruption scandal that cost the job of one of Europe's youngest leaders. Sebastian Kurz, a 35-year-old once feted as a "whizz kid", said he was quitting the top job after being implicated in a corruption scandal. Van der Bellen said the government now had the "great responsibility of restoring trust". Kurz's centre-right People's Party (OeVP) and their junior Green coalition partners hoped to move on from the scandal and serve out the rest of their term until 2024. However, the fallout from events may continue to reverberate after prosecutors raided several OeVP-linked locations, including the chancellery and party headquarters, over allegations that between 2016 and 2018 finance ministry resources were used to pay for "partially manipulated opinion polls that served an exclusively party-political interest".
Sebastian Kurz announced 01 December 2021 his retirement from politics. The 35-year-old cited the family and the birth of his first child as the main reason on Thursday. And yet: The resignation was preceded by turbulent months. “There is something draining about that,” said Kurz, “it made the flame in me smaller.” He was critical of the “constant observation” to which he was exposed. "As chancellor, you have so many decisions that you have to make every day, that you know early on that you will also make wrong decisions," he said. "You're always under observation. You also constantly have the feeling that you're being hunted," Kurz added.
Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg announced 01 December 2021 he would not run for party leadership and announced his intention to resign as head of government. "I firmly believe that both positions — head of government and leader of the Austrian party with the most votes — should soon once again be held by the same person," Schallenberg said in a statement. "I am therefore making my post as chancellor available as soon as the relevant course has been set within the party," he added. This should make Schallenberg the shortest-serving chancellor in the history of the Second Republic.
Interior Minister Karl Nehammer, an enforcer of Kurz's hard line on immigration, seemed most likely to become party leader and chancellor when the OVP leadership met on 03 December 2021. In 2017 and 2019, Kurz led the ÖVP to the top in elections and himself to the Chancellery. If there were now new elections, the ÖVP would lose heavily. According to surveys, it would fall from 37.5 percent to around 20 percent. New elections should therefore not be on the ÖVP's agenda.
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