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Election in Austria: The Tyrol Paradox

2022-09-25T19:16:25.900Z


First political mood test since Sebastian Kurz's fall: In Tyrol, the ÖVP loses a whopping ten percentage points - and yet the result stabilizes the ailing party leader and Chancellor Karl Nehammer.


Enlarge image

ÖVP top candidate Anton Mattle casting a vote in the municipal office in Galtür

Photo: Expa;

Johann Groder / dpa

When the first projection flickered across the television screens shortly after 5 p.m. this Sunday, a curious scene ensued at the headquarters of the People’s Party (ÖVP).

The Conservative bar stands at 34.5 percent.

That means a loss of almost ten points compared to the last state election - a fiasco, the worst result in the history of the party, actually a reason for a bad mood.

But the opposite is the case: cheering breaks out among the supporters of the ÖVP, as described by an ORF television journalist, who, despite the juicy voter chatter, seem relieved.

There is a simple explanation for the Tyrolean paradox: The ÖVP had feared an even bigger minus.

In fact, several polls before the election delivered catastrophic results for the Tyrolean People's Party.

On the day before the election, one institute saw the Christian Social Party as only 27 percent.

The party, which had been in power without interruption since 1945, was threatened with opposition.

"The fear was actually great," political scientist Lore Hayek from the University of Innsbruck told SPIEGEL.

Such surveys are likely to have mobilized in favor of the ÖVP - Hayek suspects a "pity effect".

Coalition of ÖVP and SPÖ likely

After the first projections, the routine of power becomes apparent that evening.

Even before the official end result is known, leading candidate Anton Mattle is claiming the right to form a government.

His ÖVP received twice as many mandates as the second and third-placed parties, he says twice - and "of course also claims leadership" for the office of head of government, which in Austria at state level bears the title of governor.

The provisional end result finally sees the conservatives in the evening at 34.71 percent, which is a few seats fewer in the state parliament.

Little else will change for the ÖVP, except for the coalition partner.

After ten years of Black-Green, the Conservatives are now likely to bring the Social Democrats into the state government as junior partners.

A political turning point in Tyrol is therefore not possible, but it would have been possible.

A fall of the ÖVP from the government would have triggered shock waves that would have spilled over to Vienna.

Then the first election after the political end of their luminary Sebastian Kurz would have also become dangerous for his successor in the chancellery and party chairmanship: There would certainly have been a leadership debate about Karl Nehammer.

The Tyrolean ÖVP campaign was characterized from the start by bankruptcies, bad luck and breakdowns, and Nehammer himself disturbed his party friends with a bizarre joke about "alcohol and psychotropic drugs" as a remedy in times of crisis.

The chancellor did not make a single appearance during the election campaign.

The Tyrolean conservatives obviously wanted to stay away from the problems of the federal party.

Just don't "graze", as they say in Austria, is what you want when it comes to staff associated with raunchy chats, the rumor of corruption and political decline.

Next nail-biter in Lower Austria

Because under Nehammer, the party is now bobbing at only about 20 percent across Austria – behind the SPÖ and the radical right-wing FPÖ.

How desolate the ÖVP is internally was shown by the furious departure of the general secretary almost two weeks ago - in her resignation she accused the party leadership of having revealed conservative values.

The Tyrolean election result stabilizes Nehammer, who is considered to be ailing, and with it his turquoise-green federal government, which will continue to hold office until the end of the legislative period in autumn 2024.

But the ballot in the mountainous Tyrol makes a structural problem clear that the ÖVP is likely to have in the rest of the Alpine republic: the popularity in rural areas is dwindling noticeably.

"In the small communities, in the valleys where the ÖVP has clearly dominated, the electorate is eroding," says political scientist Hayek.

This development could soon manifest itself politically in another part of the country.

Because at the beginning of 2023, the ÖVP will face the next test.

Then choose Lower Austria, a federal state that represents for conservatives what North Rhine-Westphalia has long been for the Social Democrats: a political heart chamber.

According to opinion polls, the mood there is also increasingly turning against the ÖVP.

With the minor defeat in Tyrol, Nehammer and his party gained at most a few months until the next nail-biter.

The chancellor himself does not want to comment on the election until tomorrow Monday at the earliest, it was said from Vienna's Ballhausplatz when asked by SPIEGEL.

But his government spokesman Daniel Kosak tweeted with relief the lousy survey data for the ÖVP before the election together with the first numbers of the projections and wrote: "Surveys vs. Reality".

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-09-25

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