Austrian Elections & Politics 2.0 (Presidential runoff re-vote: 4 Dec. 2016)

[DavidB.]

Why the  do you even need postal votes? If people are too lazy to vote IRL then that's no big loss.

[DavidB.]

Interesting:

SPÖ and ÖVP want to update the number of voters, if the election is delayed to a later date.

Since the original April election, about 35.000 people have died - but 35.000 people also reached voting age. These new voters would have been not allowed to vote, because of the cutoff date in April. Because the new election could take place in 2017, about 50.000 young voters would be unable to vote, despite reaching voting age. The major parties now want to fix this.

This is also good news for VdB, because first-time-voters tend to vote for VdB over Hofer.

Which, of course, is exactly why SPÖ and ÖVP want it.

[DavidB.]

The VdB camp got a major problem with the election delay to Dec. 4:

Contrary to the Hofer-posters, the VdB-posters all had the date Oct. 2 printed on them.

Which means VdB needs a new poster series for all of Austria, costing another 1-2 million €.

Hofer can let his campaign posters stand all the way until Dec. 4 ...

LMAO
M
A
O

[DavidB.]

2 new polls:

Gallup for Ö24 newspaper



Unique Research for Profil magazine

33% FPÖ
26% SPÖ
20% ÖVP
13% Greens
  7% NEOS
  1% Others

Also:

78% say they are "certain" to vote in the December 4 presidential re-vote and 76% also say that the election will finally be held in a proper way without problems.

Red-black-green coalition?

In this case FPÖ-ÖVP seems far more likely.

[DavidB.]

Has the cordon sanitaire been lifted? Is the ÖVP no longer traumatized by the last time there was a FPÖVP coalition?

As far as I know there was never a real cordon sanitaire in Austria. The ÖVP was just tired of the FPÖ and the FPÖ itself had split up + lost popularity because of its screw-ups in government. However, it seems time has healed all the FPÖ's wounds. There are currently coalitions between ÖVP and FPÖ (Upper Austria) and even between SPÖ and FPÖ (Burgenland) on the regional level. While the ÖVP aren't exactly happy to engage in a coalition with the FPÖ again, they would probably do it on the national level as well in the event that the FPÖ were to be as large as the Gallup poll projects and the grand coalition would not have a majority.

Would the EU sanction Austria again in such a case? I doubt it, but I find the idea of sanctioning one of your own members for having the wrong election outcome hard to believe in the first place. What were these sanctions, anyway?

EU member states did this when the FPÖ entered the government in 2000 by freezing all bilateral relations with Austria (which was almost solely a symbolic move), and it backfired spectacularly: in Austria it unified the government parties and strengthened the government's position, and outside Austria it came across as blatantly undemocratic to the extent that it even played a role in Denmark's decision (by referendum) not to implement the euro. At this point, radical right-wing parties have sustained or been part of the government in a large number of EU member states: except for Austria there's also Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands in Western Europe, and let's not start about Eastern European right-wing parties like Fidesz or PiS... A radical right-wing PM in a Western European country would be a first, but apart from that no one in Europe will be surprised over the FPÖ entering the government. These things have happened for almost two decades now. Of course, there will be outrage. But no one can really be surprised anymore. And there will be no sanctions.

[DavidB.]

* HC Strache (FPÖ-leader) (...) also posted a controversial poem on his Facebook page on Austria's National Holiday on Wednesday, from a Austrian writer most active in the 1920s who also wrote the "Swastika Poem" for a local Nazi group back then.

Classy.

[DavidB.]

Can't I change my vote in this poll? I want the madness to end.

[DavidB.]

Norbert Hofer's closing ad ("Together we are Austria"):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_Xj3V2-MDk

Wonder why YouTube autoplay shows a video by the Identitäre Bewegung immediately after this ad

[DavidB.]

So when will the next attempt take place?

[DavidB.]

Well, there was one Austrian artist a few years back who I'm sure would have voted for Hofer....

:')____