Austrian Elections & Politics 4.0

[Tender Branson]

Turns out that ÖVP, FPÖ and SPÖ all spent much more on the 2017 federal election than allowed.

Austria has a 7 Mio. € cap per party for federal elections (from the day the election calendar starts until election day). That involves all of the party subgroups, such as state or local party organisations.



The parties reported the following to the Austrian Court of Audit:

13.0 million € - ÖVP
10.7 million € - FPÖ
  7.4 million € - SPÖ
  4.1 million € - Greens
  2.7 million € - NEOS
  0.3 million € - LiPi

So, the 2017 Austrian election campaign cost about 50 Mio. $ (or 1.85 Bio. $ in US-terms).

Parties that spent more than the cap of 7 Mio. € will now have to pay a penalty worth 20% of the surplus spending.

For example, the ÖVP will now have to pay 1.2 million € penalty and the FPÖ slightly less than a million €.

The 20% penalty is much lower than in Germany, where parties have to pay 150% surplus penalty.

NEOS has already demanded much higher penalties today as a result of ÖVP, FPÖ and SPÖ not meeting the legal campaign cap.

https://www.sn.at/politik/innenpolitik/oevp-und-fpoe-sprengten-kostenrahmen-bei-nr-wahlkampf-59547262

Paying the penalty won't be all too tough for the ÖVP and FPÖ, because they are both getting a lot more in party financing (as a result of their good election results) and both parties have generally a surplus.

The SPÖ, which has a lot of debt, only has to pay a small penalty.

[Tender Branson]

The fact that ÖVP and FPÖ spent significantly more than allowed last year is still creating a lot of controversy here for the government. The media and columnists are not amused with it and call for tougher penalties.

On the other hand, the fact that ÖVP-FPÖ pulled out of the UN migration compact will likely help the government, because this is popular with voters.

Besides, Austrian families will have a lot more in their pockets early next year, when the child bonus kicks in. Polls are therefore unlikely to change soon.

[Omega21]

President VdB says that "Austria is losing its reputation" because of the recent Migration pact withdrawal.

https://www.krone.at/1801408

Nothing new really, he cares more about Austria's "image" than what the citizens want.

[DavidB.]

If not wanting your people to become a minority in their own country is bad for your reputation, I don't think I want my country to have a good reputation.

[Tender Branson]

President VdB says that "Austria is losing its reputation" because of the recent Migration pact withdrawal.

https://www.krone.at/1801408

Nothing new really, he cares more about Austria's "image" than what the citizens want.

If not wanting your people to become a minority in their own country is bad for your reputation, I don't think I want my country to have a good reputation.

IMO, this UN "migration compact" is a 2-edged sword: most of the goals in there are probably not binding at all for a country like Austria or the US, but certain provisions in there could be outlined by NGO's in a way that they are suing in court to implement them here. If they find willing judges who implement their agenda, the compact (or certain parts of it) could be forced on us through the backdoor. Which is something we don't want. Austria (and any sane country) should be able to pick and choose who comes and set their own criteria about immigration. I think it is a good decision by ÖVP-FPÖ to get out of this compact and shows a certain spine. Which is also a sign of a good and functioning reputation. It shows to the world that Austria is self-confident about immigration and that we won't let others (UN, immigrants) decide our policies.

[Omega21]

If not wanting your people to become a minority in their own country is bad for your reputation, I don't think I want my country to have a good reputation.

Couldn't have said it better!

Even with the current numbers, Western Europeans will become minorities. Hell, even the capital of the EU is 20% Muslim.

[Tender Branson]

New poll for Ö24:



They still stubbornly show Peter Pilz as leader of the "List Pilz", when in fact Maria Stern has been party leader for several months now.

Also: no Rendi-Wagner bump and the FPÖ recovering.

[Tender Branson]

ATV Austria Trend poll:

33% ÖVP (-1 compared with August)
25% FPÖ (+2)
25% SPÖ (-3)
  7% NEOS (n.c.)
  6% Greens (+2)
  2% LiPi (-1)
  2% Others (+1)

https://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20181102_OTS0073/sperrfrist-1920-uhr-atv-oesterreich-trend-oevp-bei-33-spoe-und-fpoe-gleichauf-bei-25-fiktive-kanzlerfrage-rendi-wagner-derzeit-bei-18

[Umengus]

New poll for Ö24:



They still stubbornly show Peter Pilz as leader of the "List Pilz", when in fact Maria Stern has been party leader for several months now.

Also: no Rendi-Wagner bump and the FPÖ recovering.

how explain the "no rendi-wagner bump" ?

[Tender Branson]

How to explain the "no Rendi-Wagner bump" ?

The SPÖ has been a really chaotic party following the sudden retirement of Kern as party leader. I have posted about it. First Kern stepped down, which surprised everyone. Then, he chose to run as EU-frontrunner for the SPÖ. After he didn't get enough support from within the PES and got attacked from within the SPÖ, he chose to retire alltogether. Then the SPÖ nominated the colourless, political dinosaur Andreas Schieder for the EU Versorgungsposten.

Then, there was the back-and-forth about Gov. Kaiser's son being removed from the EU-list of electable seats in favour of a woman, because of nepotism charges. Then, there was Rolex-gate ("snob", bad "bobo" !) and the artwork controversy involving Thomas Drozda, the former Chancellery Minister under Kern and now the new SPÖ general secretary.

Rendi-Wagner has gone pretty silent right now. But she continues to be the most competent, open-minded person in the SPÖ right now. On the other hand, even she cannot repair so easily all the damage that was done over the past few weeks in that mess of a party.

[PSOL]

Spy Scandal breaks in Vienna
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-austria-russia-spy/austrian-colonel-spied-for-russia-for-decades-vienna-says-idUSKCN1NE0SH

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[Omega21]

Spy Scandal breaks in Vienna
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-austria-russia-spy/austrian-colonel-spied-for-russia-for-decades-vienna-says-idUSKCN1NE0SH

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Damn.

Well, at least now we know that the Russians are also spying, not just Americans. *cough NSA villa.

Support the trip cancellation, it would be foolish if she went after this. 

[Tender Branson]

Yeah, the only surprising thing here really is that it was exposed, LOL.

Everyone knows that Austria (or Vienna) is a spy-hotspot in Europe, with American, Russian, British, French and other spies all actively deployed.

Apparently, the spy (who's from here in Salzburg) got about 500.000€ over the years from the Russians and provided them with info about the Austrian military (LOL, again) and about how the authorities dealt with the immigration wave of 2015-16.

[Tender Branson]

In other news, there's a poll about the UN migration pact - which Austria decided to abandon.

In the Unique Research poll for the "Heute" newspaper, 50% support the ÖVP/FPÖ-government in abandoning the pact, while 31% oppose it. 19% are undecided.

FPÖ-voters support it by a 89-2 margin and ÖVP-voters by a 66-18 margin.

SPÖ-voters wanted Austria to sign the UN migration pact by a 64-26 margin.

https://www.heute.at/politik/news/story/Migrationspakt--Die-Haelfte-zufrieden-mit-Ausstieg-51561735

[Tender Branson]

The "List Pilz" has announced yesterday that the PR agency they hired has worked out a new name for the party and that the party has agreed on the new name.

The new name will be presented "before Christmas", as well as a new logo and a new, updated policy platform for the EU elections.

The name "Peter Pilz" will not be in the new party name any longer, a spokesperson announced.

https://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/Liste-Pilz-Neuer-Name-steht-fest/355217360

[rob in cal]

   Tender, I'm actually surprised the SPO support for the UN migration pact was as big as it was, or perhaps I'm overestimating the working class share of support still in the SPO.

[Tender Branson]

  Tender, I'm actually surprised the SPO support for the UN migration pact was as big as it was, or perhaps I'm overestimating the working class share of support still in the SPO.

I think the numbers for the SPÖ on the UN migration pact are more or less correct. I would assume that about 2/3 SPÖ-voters right now are the urban/suburban left-liberal types in support and 1/3 the more older, rural working-class types opposed to it. All the others have already abandoned the SPÖ for the FPÖ.

While specifically, many SPÖ-members might be against further uncontrolled immigration - on the topic of the more vague UN pact, it seems support is higher because a lot of SPÖ-voters also care about our reputation abroad if Austria abandons its long-standing UN tradition.

[Tender Branson]

Another poll, for the "Profil" magazine, confirms that Austrians support ÖVP-FPÖ's announcement to pull out of the UN migration pact:

49% support
29% oppose
  9% explicitly say they have no clue what the UN migration pact even is
13% are undecided

https://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20181110_OTS0004/profil-umfrage-49-fuer-ausstieg-aus-dem-un-migrationspakt

[rob in cal]

  I like the honest 9%who admit they had no clue what the question was about.

[Tender Branson]

The FPÖ has pulled a racist online video (called "Bad luck, Ali !"), after heavy criticism from other parties:



https://www.tt.com/politik/innenpolitik/15013369/nach-aufregung-fpoe-nimmt-rassistisches-video-vom-netz

The video shows a man called "Ali" who enters a dentist with the e-card (the Austrian electronic healthcare card that every insured Austrian has) of his cousin "Mustafa" to refurbish his teeth, but fails because the new e-cards will have tougher abuse prevention, starting next year. ÖVP-FPÖ made it harder to use the e-cards for fraud (something that virtually didn't exist anyway before).

[PSOL]

PM Kurz responds.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-austria-russia-spy/austria-says-it-will-not-expel-any-russians-over-spy-case-idUSKCN1NJ23G

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[Tender Branson]

PM Kurz responds.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-austria-russia-spy/austria-says-it-will-not-expel-any-russians-over-spy-case-idUSKCN1NJ23G

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Kurz, Strache and Hofer (FPÖ) also responded to the racist FPÖ movie that they pulled yesterday, calling it "unacceptable" and that "internal FPÖ-controlling measures failed" and Strache also promised better "quality management" in the future about such things.

https://derstandard.at/2000091323865/Strache-verspricht-kuenftig-Qualitaetsmanagement

[Tender Branson]

The ÖVP-FPÖ government held a summit yesterday to combat online violence and bullying, online trolls/robots and violence against women (online and offline).



The government has agreed on better legal aid for those affected by cyber bullying and wants a better grip on the bullies. For this, they will work on a new cyber enforcement law, which will mandate internet service providers to track down and hand over the IP addresses of bullies to authorities after a victim files a charge.

Initially, the ÖVP also wanted a mandatory to introduce a "clear name" (Klarnamen) law, which would mandate websites to register users only with their real names, but the FPÖ was opposed because of liberty reasons.

Internet experts said that their aim for better legal aid for bullies is good, but question if the internet technology-related proposals can be achieved. Via VPNs, bullies and cyber-trolls could still go on with their abuse, despite service providers being more vigilant.

https://derstandard.at/2000091364864/Digitales-Vermummungsverbot-Ein-unglueckliches-Gesetz-als-Vorbild-fuer-Oesterreich

[bigic]

Initially, the ÖVP also wanted a mandatory to introduce a "clear name" (Klarnamen) law, which would mandate websites to register users only with their real names, but the FPÖ was opposed because of liberty reasons.

Something good even from a party like FPÖ.
And AFAIK such regulation is ineffective in stopping cyberbullying, or even counterproductive.

[Tender Branson]

Initially, the ÖVP also wanted to introduce a "clear name" (Klarnamen) law, which would mandate websites to register users only with their real names, but the FPÖ was opposed because of liberty reasons.

Something good even from a party like FPÖ.
And AFAIK such regulation is ineffective in stopping cyberbullying, or even counterproductive.

Some said the "liberty" argument from the FPÖ on the issue of clear names was only because the FPÖ deploys the biggest army of online trolls among all major parties and by blocking the new clear name law they want to protect their anonymous troll army ...