🇦🇹 Austrian Elections & Politics 6.0 - Upper Austria election: 26 Sept. 2021

[Tender Branson]

Doesn't the billboard have double meaning, considering that Kern was the SPO leader back then?

Yeah, because it involves all 3 party leaders at the time.

[Tender Branson]

Today, 9am, in parliament:

Declaration of government by Kurz and Kogler and presentation of the new government.

Also, a law will be passed to re-organize the cabinet responsibilities and an interim budget for 2020 (based on 2019 numbers).

The new budget for 2020 and maybe 2021 will be passed in March/April.

https://orf.at/stories/3150300

[Tender Branson]

Burgenland SPÖ Governor Doskozil knows how to win elections big time at 40%+ even though the federal SPÖ is languishing around at 17%:

„The Green policies are dangerous for the average worker.“

„ÖVP-Green want to secretly introduce voting rights for foreigners.“

Looks like he’s pushing the FPÖ to 5% by winning over their voters and a good amount of Kurz voters from last year.

The state election is in 2 weeks.

[Tender Branson]

Former FPÖ-leader Strache has been announced as a so-called "guest speaker" at a Jan. 23 event for the newly created DAÖ (Alliance for Austria).

https://wien.orf.at/stories/3029383

DAÖ has gained another 3 MPs from Vienna this week (now has 6) and could run in the Vienna state election this fall, with Strache as lead candidate.

DAÖ could split the FPÖ-potential in half. Currently, they have around 13-15%, so basically 7% for each party.

[rob in cal]

  It will be fascinating to watch the SPO and FPO in opposition together, and whether their criticism of th new government start to converge.

[Tender Branson]

  It will be fascinating to watch the SPO and FPO in opposition together, and whether their criticism of th new government start to converge.

SPÖ+FPÖ will continue to struggle for the next months, because of all their current and past problems. It won't be so easy to shake off all those allegations and switch into opposition mode.

That's why ÖVP+Greens will have a more-or-less trouble-free 1st 100 days in office.

[Tender Branson]

New Ö24 poll (Jan. 3-9):

39% ÖVP (+1.5)
17% Greens (+3.1)
17% SPÖ (-4.2)
12% FPÖ (-4.2)
  9% NEOS (+0.9)
  3% DAÖ (+3.0)
  3% Others (-0.1)

From this poll:

60% approve of the ÖVP-Green government formation (4% more than they get in the poll)

13% say that ÖVP-Greens will last more than 1 term
39% say that it will last the whole term
37% say it will last only 1-2 years
11% say it will break apart this year already

The poll also asked support/opposition for some of ÖVP+Greens coalition policies:

88% support the introduction of a nationwide public transport ticket for 365€ per year
73% support a headscarf ban for Muslim girls up to 14 years of age in school
68% support the planned tax cuts/reform and child benefit expansion
63% support raising the flight ticket fees/additional taxes to combat climate change
63% support the introduction of a Freedom of Information Law for government transparency

Also:

Kurz, Van der Bellen and Kogler remain the most popular politicians, whereas all new government members have mostly balanced numbers and Kickl, Strache and Rendi-Wagner having the worst scores.

https://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/Umfrage-Kogler-schon-auf-Platz-2/412735093

[Tender Branson]

Monthly "Profil" poll (worst result for the SPÖ in 150 years of party history):

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1215984468189700096

[Tender Branson]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_state_leaders_by_age#10_youngest_serving_state_leaders

He’s a bit younger than Sanna Marin from Finland.

Thoughts ?

Good in Last Govt., yet to see about his performance this time around.

Omega, as someone from Bosnia and right-winger, what do you think about Alma Zadic and her becoming Justice Minister in Austria and the heavy online attacks and murder threats from the FPÖ against her ?

[Tender Branson]

The FPÖ is out with a very good, personal video for their New Years Meeting - acknowledging the mistakes they made in the past year.

Members from their voter base talk about deep disappointment and frustration about these developments on Ibiza, Strache, embezzlement & corruption allegations.

Yet at the end they say it’s time to stick together and correct the mistakes from the past.

This is the kind of attitude the SPÖ would need right now, but even there the FPÖ (!) is having a better grasp than the Social Democrats ...

[Tender Branson]

New Vienna state election poll for Ö24 (election will likely be held in the fall):



Changes compared with 2015:

SPÖ: -8%
ÖVP: +12%
Greens: +5%
FPÖ: -19%
NEOS: +6%
DAÖ: +5%
Others: -1%

This poll is interesting, because Mayor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ) has a 68% approval rating, yet the SPÖ apparently drops by 8%.

https://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/wien/Umfrage-Wendezeit-im-Rathaus/412749709

[mileslunn]

Could like Germany, Greens replace SPO as main centre-left alternative.  I feel today Greens are better suited for modern day left than are social democrats.  Blue collar workers in smaller communities seem to be drifting rightward so I think tough to win them back although perhaps if like Denmark's social democrats, they combined left of centre economic policies with tough on immigration maybe but that might alienate the immigrant community and their urban educated class.  By contrast Greens are more centered on younger and urban voters and I believe the future of the left is with urban educated class not working class.  That being said US and Canada it is a bit easier as their left are Liberals not social democrats and I find the upper middle class are fine voting Liberal, but social democrat or Green is a bridge too far.

[Omega21]

Not really newsworthy or scandalous, but still a bit funny.

https://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/Hier-goennt-sich-Werner-Kogler-ein-McMenue/413006374

[Tender Branson]

2 new polls today (Ö24 + Puls 24):

39% / 39% ÖVP
17% / 17% Greens
16% / 17% SPÖ
13% / 15% FPÖ
10% /   9% NEOS
  5% /   3% Others

https://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/Umfrage-Beben-Gruene-ueberholen-SPOe/413380380

https://twitter.com/puls24news/status/1217760974205325313

[Tender Branson]

Turns out that Austria had a much bigger budget surplus last year than anticipated (thanks to good labour market data and income tax revenue):

https://www.diepresse.com/5751440/budgetuberschuss-woher-das-geld-kommt

According to preliminary numbers, the federal government budget had a surplus of 1.45 billion € (which is ca. 1 billion more than what ÖVP-FPÖ planned for 2019).

That is only the federal government, excluding the states, the communities and the healthcare providers. Those 4 branches together make up the Maastricht surplus/deficit - which makes it comparable to other EU countries. Those numbers will be out at the end of March. Considering those usually provide additional surpluses, it is likely that Austria had a Maastricht surplus worth ca. 3-4 billion € last year, or ca. 1% of GDP.

That will create more wiggle-room for the new ÖVP-Green government when it comes to creating the 2020/2021 budgets and their plans for tax cuts/reform, ecological measures etc.

[Tender Branson]

Burgenland, the smallest of the 9 states, will have state elections next Sunday.

An early voting day will be held tomorrow to "boost" turnout (but so far, early voting days have not shown to boost turnout at all).

This election will be really important for the SPÖ, because it could stop their downward trend. But that's only got to do with Governor Doskozil, who is more of an old-school Social Democrat (Bruno Kreisky-style), who knows how to attract ÖVP- and FPÖ-voters.

On the other hand, the FPÖ will do badly in this election and nobody knows if the LBL will once again make it into the state parliament. Polls are rare.

ÖVP and Greens should do well (in the Green case, 7-9% would be a record-result for Burgenland ... ). NEOS will have a hard time passing 4%, but who knows ...

[Tender Branson]

From the new Puls 24/Karmasin poll (name recognition rates of the new ÖVP+Green government members and trust in them):



Trust is higher the more they are known to voters ... as can be expected at this point.

Another thing that sticks out:

Alma Zadic is already known by 2/3 voters and gets surprisingly high trust ratings from the public, despite the online hate attacks and murder threats from the FPÖ (or maybe those attacks were even a reason to rally behind her).

[Tender Branson]

New Karmasin / Puls 24 poll for the Burgenland state election next Sunday:

https://twitter.com/puls24news/status/1218146034519552010

https://twitter.com/thomas_mohr/status/1218154322111946756

[Tender Branson]

The LBL is a FPÖ splinter party, btw.

It is one of 5 parties that are only represented in state parliaments right now (the others are the KPÖ in Styria, the Team Carinthia, FRITZ in Tyrol and DAÖ in Vienna. DAÖ is the only one not elected by voters, but was established by rogue MPs).

[Tender Branson]

11% of eligible voters have voted early yesterday for the Burgenland state election next Sunday.

That’s up from 8.5% ahead of the 2015 election.

https://orf.at/stories/3151383

[Tender Branson]

So, the Burgenland state election on Sunday will feature the heavily popular SPÖ Governor Doskozil ... who currently has virtually no voice after several throat/vocal chord surgeries.

Currently, there’s a live debate going on and I read in newspapers that he has no voice, but hearing it is just wow:

[Tender Branson]

Former FPÖ leader Strache was a „guest speaker“ tonight at the DAÖ (Alliance for Austria) New Years Meeting:

https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000113667476/spannung-vor-strache-rede-bei-daoe-veranstaltung

About 1.000 people got tickets for the event in Vienna and Strache lashed out against Hofer and Kickl („previous so-called friends showed their true colours“).

Strache could become DAÖ frontrunner for the Vienna state election, but didn’t say so today. He said he has some „homework“ left to do in the next months ...

[Tender Branson]

New poll:

[Tender Branson]

Former FPÖ leader Strache was a „guest speaker“ tonight at the DAÖ (Alliance for Austria) New Years Meeting:

https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000113667476/spannung-vor-strache-rede-bei-daoe-veranstaltung

About 1.000 people got tickets for the event in Vienna and Strache lashed out against Hofer and Kickl („previous so-called friends showed their true colours“).

Strache could become DAÖ frontrunner for the Vienna state election, but didn’t say so today. He said he has some „homework“ left to do in the next months ...

Video of the Strache comeback with standing ovations:

https://twitter.com/puls24news/status/1220433626820640769

[Tender Branson]

Tomorrow, not only state elections will be held in Burgenland but also municipal elections in Lower Austria, the 2nd largest state.

But not all 573 municipalities will have one: 6 have different election dates, among them the capital city St. Pölten. Still, about 93% of voters in the state are eligible tomorrow. That’s about 1.5 million voters.

In the Burgenland state election for example, it’s only some 250.000 voters.