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

[Tender Branson]

Also, voters say that Sebastian Kurz had the best performance in the coalition "programme update" talks, with 79% (!) saying they approve of his performance.

Finance Minister Schelling had a 68% rating.

Kern had a 62% rating, Mitterlehner 52%.

[Tender Branson]

Sebastian Kurz is now getting death threats by a 16-year old Chechen criminal and his friends, who just recently punched a 15-year old Vienna girl in her face in an attempt to kill her.



http://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/So-reagiert-Kurz-auf-das-Hass-Posting/267734339

Kurz responds by saying: "It's really obvious that we hit a nerve and are targeting the real folks with the anti-veil law. Misogynist views have no place in Austria."

[Tender Branson]

Tonight, the FPÖ's "academics ball" takes place in the Hofburg.

The number of anti-fa, left-leftist and black block protesters is down significantly from the previous years (especially from 2014, when some 20.000 leftists protested and destroyed the inner-city of Vienna).

Today, it's between 2.500 (estimates of the police) to 5.000 (organizers).

That's probably because President Van der Bellen (Greens) recently said: "Let them dance."

Police was anticipating a much larger protest crowd, so they put 3.000 officers on the ground (which means almost one police officer for each protester).

Vienna is pretty foggy tonight, so the mood is special:

[Tender Branson]

Here are some campaign posters for the Graz city council election tomorrow:



ÖVP: "Vote Nagl ! Graz in good hands. - Mayor Siegfried Nagl"

KPÖ: "Help instead of talk. Stand tall, give hope. Elke Kahr - KPÖ. You can vote for credibility."

SPÖ: "My personal appeal: Give the SPÖ a new chance ... to make our Graz more affordable, more lovable and livable for all. Michael Ehmann."

FPÖ: "Let's take our Graz back. Security. Love for the Homeland. Maintain our values. Mario Eustacchio."

Greens: "Graz is getting green again. Tina Wirnsberger."

Pirates: "You will wonder what kind of things will be possible ..." (a quote from Norbert Hofer)

NEOS: "Graz can do everything ! You can vote for a public transport capital. NEOS."

[Tender Branson]

Btw:

The number of eligible voters in the Graz city council election tomorrow is around 223.000 (this number includes all Austrian citizens aged 16+ and all EU-citizens aged 16+ in the city).

There will also be a "migrant advisory council" election, in which all non-EU residents (some 25.000) can vote (turnout in this election was only 9% though in 2012).

Anyway, my prediction for tomorrow:

30% ÖVP (-4)
23% KPÖ (+3)
17% FPÖ (+3)
13% Greens (+1)
12% SPÖ (-3)
  3% NEOS (+3)
  1% Pirates (-2)
  1% Others (-1)

Turnout: 68%

[Tender Branson]

Between 2000 people (police) and 4.000 (organizers) protested yesterday in Vienna against the coming full-face veil ban in public:

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http://en.europeonline-magazine.eu/2000-protest-against-planned-austrian-headscarf-restrictions_514055.html

The law will take effect on July 1, 2017 and fully-veiled persons (incl. tourists) will be fined 150€ per offense.

Around 80% of Austrian voters support the ban.

[Tender Branson]

Result of today's Graz city council elections:

38.2% ÖVP (+4.4)
20.0% KPÖ (+0.2)
15.8% FPÖ (+2.0)
10.5% Greens (-1.6)
10.1% SPÖ (-5.2)
  4.0% NEOS (+4.0)
  1.1% Pirates (-1.6)
  0.4% Others (-2.1)

[Tender Branson]

Some maps:

The KPÖ did really well in the 6 inner-city districts (getting between 24-29% there), while only getting between 13-20% in the outer districts.

Winner by district



Winner by precinct (white = tied)



Clickable maps:

http://orf.at/wahl/graz17/#globus/graz2017/winnerbezirke

[Tender Branson]

   So Mayor Nagl's fear of a KPO, SPO, Green majority didn't come to pass.  Is the mayor elected by the city council? And would a KPO,SPO, Green majority have worked together to elect a new mayor if they had won a majority?

Yes, the mayor is elected by the new city council.

The seat distribution in Graz after the Sunday election is as followed:

19 ÖVP
10 KPÖ
  8 FPÖ
  5 Greens
  5 SPÖ
  1 NEOS
48 Total

As you can see, the ÖVP would have no majority with either SPÖ or Greens.

ÖVP-KPÖ won't happen. Basically Nagl can do whatever he wants now.

The previous coalition was ÖVP-SPÖ-FPÖ and the one before was ÖVP-Greens.

We'll see what happens. ÖVP-FPÖ is possible, but so is ÖVP-SPÖ-Greens or ÖVP-SPÖ-NEOS.

Or ÖVP-SPÖ-FPÖ again.

...

As for your question about a KPÖ-SPÖ-Green majority: Yes, they would have elected Elke Kahr (KPÖ) as the new mayor.

[Tender Branson]

A quick analysis about why the ÖVP did much better than expected in the Graz election:

* Mayor Nagl's popularity and incumbency-bonus

* The federal ÖVP's security package which was agreed on in the recent coalition update talks, with an emphasis on the Burqa/Niqab ban in the public and tougher measures against terror suspects, salafists and better integration of lawful asylum seekers and swifter deportation of criminal ones.

* The KPÖ-bashing by the ÖVP in the final week before the election, creating a horse race between the two parties that never was. And many centrist voters from other parties went to the ÖVP to prevent a KPÖ-power grab.

[Tender Branson]

Some Turks hacked the Austrian Parliament website on Sunday:

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https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/02/07/world/europe/ap-eu-austria-parliament-hacked-.html

[Tender Branson]

Austria's population has grown by 0.8% last year, according to data released by Statistics Austria today. That is down from the 1.4% growth rate in 2015, but still above the long-term average of around 0.3-0.6% in the past 30 years.

The January 1, 2017 population was 8.773.686 people.

15.3% of the population are foreigners, up from 14.6% a year ago.

Among the states, Vienna had the highest growth (+1.5%) and some districts within Vienna even had a 3% growth rate.

Several districts though had a higher growth rate than Vienna, and 22 (mostly rural) districts lost population.

Alltogether, the foreign population increased by 75.084 persons - of which EU citizens made up 39.350 persons and non-EU citizens 35.734.

People with Austrian citizenship declined by 1.869 people.

The TOP-10 citizenships with the highest increase last year:

+9.700 Afghanistan
+9.200 Romania
+8.300 Syria
+7.100 Hungary
+5.200 Germany
+3.100 Croatia
+2.800 Slovakia
+2.500 Bulgaria
+2.500 Poland
+2.300 Iran

Population growth by district:



VdB vs. Hofer by district:



http://www.statistik.at/web_de/presse/111433.html

[Tender Branson]

Interesting fact:

While the immigration surplus among EU-citizens moving to Austria remained virtually unchanged, it significantly decreased among non EU-citizens (fewer refugees last year than 2015):

EU-citizen migration balance to Austria

2016: +39.400
2015: +41.200

Non EU-citizen migration balance to Austria

2016: +35.700
2015: +77.300

...

For comparison, Austrian citizens only:

2016: -1.900
2015: -5.500

[Tender Branson]

Another interesting fact:

In the past 10 years, the number of Austrian citizens declined by about 50.000 people (DESPITE naturalisations of ~ 85.000 foreigners).

At the same time, the number of foreigners rose by 550.000 people.

The number of EU-citizens doubled, from 320.000 to 660.000 people.

The number of non-EU citizens went up from 470.000 to 680.000 people.

The share of EU-citizens among the total population rose from 4% to ~8% now.

The share of non EU-citizens among the total population rose from 6% to ~8% now.

[Tender Branson]

After the Pröll-retirement, another long-term and powerful ÖVP-governor will step down tomorrow:

Josef Pühringer, Governor of Upper Austria for the past 22 years, will hand over to Thomas Stelzer (left):



His retirement was expected for a long time, it was just a matter of "when".

Upper Austria will vote in 2020, so Stelzer will have enough time to get a good profile.

http://derstandard.at/2000052314443/Landeshauptmann-Puehringer-tritt-zurueck

[Tender Branson]

Chancellor Kern (SPÖ) prefers the next government to be SPÖ-Greens-NEOS:

http://derstandard.at/2000052287666/Kerns-SPOe-strebt-Mehrheit-mit-Gruenen-und-Neos-an

It's pretty uncommon for an Austrian Chancellor to voice a coalition preference ahead of a federal election, like they do in Sweden or other Scandinavian countries ...

[Tender Branson]

it's at least a hypothetical possible scenario, if the spö is able to stay "in touch" with the 30% range.

SPÖ+Greens+NEOS @ 50% (or close) is highly questionable.

Unless Griss runs for NEOS, they will remain at about 5% in the next federal election.

I also cannot see the Greens getting more than 11-12% (VdB-fatigue, with him as President there's no incentive anymore for additional voters to vote Green).

Which means the SPÖ has to get to around a 1/3 of the vote, which is extremely unlikely considering the current state of Social Democracy in Austria and Europe. Social Democratic parties usually always disappoint on election day.

And if Kurz is the frontrunner for the ÖVP, then Kern can say "goodbye" to his dream of a SPÖ-Green-NEOS coalition, because then they'll even have a hard time breaking 40% together (not to mention 45%) ...

[Tender Branson]

The 16-year old Chechen who threatened to kill Sebastian Kurz recently has posted again on Facebook (threatening to kill Kurz again, f**k his mother and blow up his school).

Today, a Vienna SWAT team raided his apartment and arrested him:

http://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/chronik/wien/WEGA-stuermte-Wohnung-von-Patricias-Schlaeger/268518337

(A few months ago, he also brutally beat up a 15-year old girl - but there was only a video of the incident in which he wasn't clearly visible - so he wasn't charged I guess).

[Tender Branson]

The situation in Vienna's Muslim kindergartens/schools is more and more disturbing:

A report from an "insider" shows that already small girls starting at the age of 5 are forced to wear headscarves in kindergarten and school (this recently led to the Salzburg city government to ask Muslim parents to take off the children's headscarves before they enter the kindergarten or school in the morning).

Also, Muslim kindergartens (with funding from Saudi-Arabia and Salafist circles) are indoctrinating the young kids with severe anti-semitism and anti-western views, as well as strict patriarchal thinking and general fundamentalist Islamic views.

The "Insider" says the children are "brainwashed" by the teachers at the kindergartens and schools.

[Tender Branson]

hm...i am split between my general perma-doubt against everything written in this trash-tabloid and my firm belief that such problems exist.

These problems definitely exist.

Ö24 might be a crappy tabloid, but this is reality. Other regular newspapers are reporting this as well.

https://kurier.at/chronik/wien/kopftuecher-fuer-kinder-sind-umstritten-bleiben-aber-erlaubt/244.483.368

[Tender Branson]

The anti-veil law has been introduced into parliament for debate.

There will be exceptions such as for traditional reasons: for example, Austrians can dress up as Krampus and wear masks and can wear ski masks for outdoor activities and for security reasons (such as wearing a motorcycle helmet).

But Muslim women cannot fully veil themselves in public anymore (regular headscarves remain legal though).

A 150€ fine will be executed, starting July 1.

Repeated refusals to take down the full-face veil will lead to arrest.

[Tender Branson]

On another topic, I find it odd that no pollster so far has tested by how much the ÖVP's polling numbers would explode with Sebastian Kurz as their leader ...

That's why I mailed a few pollsters recently and asked them to include this scenario in one of their future polls.

(A recent Kurier article mentioned that the JVP (Young ÖVP) has an internal poll which has the ÖVP led by Kurz in 1st place in the next federal election, but no exact numbers were published in the article. The article also mentioned that the SPÖ is currently polling Kurz's impact internally).

https://kurier.at/politik/inland/die-spoe-lotet-neuwahl-und-das-potenzial-von-sebastian-kurz-aus/244.826.198

I guess, based on his sky-high favourable ratings, that Kurz would improve the ÖVP's numbers from the current 20% to around 30% - similar to Schulz and the SPD in Germany.

[Tender Branson]

On another topic, I find it odd that no pollster so far has tested by how much the ÖVP's polling numbers would explode with Sebastian Kurz as their leader ...

What's so great about this kid?

He's the ÖVP's version of Justin Trudeau:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=254431.msg5456652#msg5456652

[Tender Branson]

Even though it won't be part of the anti-Burqa/Niqab law, a new poll shows that 76% of Austrians want a ban on headscarves in schools too (primarily for teachers):

https://www.profil.at/oesterreich/umfrage-drei-lehrerinnen-kopftuch-schulen-7980776

20% are opposed. 4% undecided.

[Tender Branson]

Don't know why you say "primarily for teachers" since this question seems to be solely about teachers wearing headscarves, not about pupils.

True, but I guess support for a student headscarf ban would be similar (or higher).