Austria's largest federal state in terms of area is elected - and the ÖVP is threatened with the next swatter.
An unlikely alliance could get a majority.
State elections
in
Lower Austria
: The federal state in north-eastern Austria elects a new parliament.
ÖVP
before the next election flop?
The loss of the absolute majority is imminent.
In this
news ticker
we will keep you up to date on the most important
developments and results of the Lower Austria elections
on Sunday evening.
Update from January 29, 5:02 p.m.:
The first projection for the state election in Lower Austria is available.
After these first numbers, the ÖVP suffers a severe defeat: 39.7 percent are on the books, a minus of almost 10 percentage points – the conservatives in their heartland have never done so badly.
The SPÖ also lost 3.2 percentage points.
The FPÖ is the main winner: the right-wing populists have gained more than ten percentage points and are now likely to become the second strongest force.
Greens and the liberal neos are gaining slightly as things stand.
The absolute majority seems unattainable for the ÖVP early on the evening of the election.
However, the competitors SPÖ and FPÖ together do not have a parliamentary majority either.
ÖVP | SPÖ | FPÖ | Green | Neos | Other |
39.7 percent | 20.7 percent | 25.4 percent | 7.3 percent | 6.2 percent | 0.8 percent |
Status: 5 p.m., source: ORF/counting status 44.5 percent
Update from January 29, 4:52 p.m .:
The first projections from St. Pölten will be available in just a few minutes: In Lower Austria, many polling stations have already closed, the last polling stations close at 5 p.m.
Then the ORF wants to present figures quickly.
ÖVP before the election flop in your own heartland?
SPÖ and FPÖ could pact
+
Skeptical looks: Austria's Chancellor Karl Nehammer (left) and party veteran Erwin Proell in the Lower Austria election campaign.
© IMAGO/Eibner-Pressefoto/EXPA/Slovencik
Preliminary report:
St. Pölten/Munich – A new state parliament will be elected around Vienna on Sunday (January 29).
Literally: the citizens of Lower Austria are called to the polls.
The federal state is not only the largest in Austria in terms of area, it also encloses the capital Vienna.
And it is considered the heartland of Chancellor Karl Nehammer's conservative ÖVP.
However, the “Turks” are threatened with the next setback.
The ÖVP is still suffering from the aftermath of the Sebastian Kurz era and allegations of corruption - but from problems such as the ubiquitous inflation.
In 2018, the conservatives in the country without a real big city still had an absolute majority.
This comfortable position should be over for Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner after this Sunday.
The portal
heute.at
recently even wrote of an impending crash of the ÖVP "into the bottomless".
Austria: Chancellor party ÖVP fears in Lower Austria – FPÖ and SPÖ could get a majority
That's probably a bit high.
The ÖVP achieved 49.6 percent in the previous election.
The latest polls by the OGM, Market and Lazarsfeld institutes put the party at 37 to 39 percent in the Sunday question.
That would still be more than in the Tyrol elections in September 2022. In the also fundamentally conservative Alpine state, the ÖVP achieved almost 35 percent.
Governor Anton Mattle had to resort to a coalition with the SPÖ.
In Lower Austria, however, the right to vote has a special trick: the government is not formed by coalition partners - but according to proportional representation.
This means that the nine ministerial posts (“state councillors”) are distributed proportionally to all parliamentary parties that receive enough votes.
Most recently, the SPÖ and FPÖ were also represented.
Although the ÖVP held the absolute majority.
Greens and the liberal Neos were represented in the state parliament, but with 6 and 5.2 percent they did not have enough mandates to be able to claim one of the few ministerial seats.
Interesting facts about Lower Austria
... the federal state is the largest in Austria in terms of area and the second largest in terms of population.
... Lower Austria is also very rural.
The largest cities are St. Pölten (56,000 inhabitants) and Wiener Neustadt (47,000 inhabitants), according to
Zeit
70 percent of Lower Austrians live in towns with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants.
... the country is considered the heartland of the conservative ÖVP.
The conservatives never achieved less than 44 percent in state elections.
However, the coalition question is not irrelevant: laws are passed in the state parliament with a majority one way or the other.
The ÖVP will probably no longer be able to do this on its own – and if there are alliances with more than 50 percent of the seats, they can de facto determine the political course.
In Lower Austria's capital St. Pölten, apart from the ÖVP, that could actually only be the right-wing populist FPÖ and the social-democratic SPÖ.
In recent surveys they were around 25 and 23 percent respectively.
Theoretically, that could be enough for a change of power.
Lower Austria election: FPÖ frightens the SPÖ with the "human rights" debate
Mikl-Leitner's conservatives warned urgently against a "red-blue" pact.
SPÖ and FPÖ actually promote change.
However, an alliance does not seem all that likely: FPÖ top candidate Udo Landbauer recently explained in the
Standard
that he distinguishes “between citizens and non-citizens” on what he considers to be a “vague” topic of human rights.
What was meant was the right to asylum.
SPÖ frontman Franz Schnabl distanced himself;
at least for the time being, as the
Wiener Zeitung
reported: "I would not elect Udo Landbauer as governor if he questions human rights."
For Austria, the Lower Austria elections are the start of spring 2023 with several important ballots.
In March, the state elections in Carinthia are on the agenda, followed in April by the federal state of Salzburg on the eastern border of Bavaria.
The next National Council election is not due until autumn 2024 - as long as Nehammer's alliance with the Greens lasts so long and the governing parties do not come up with the idea of a new election.
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List of rubrics: © IMAGO/Eibner-Pressefoto/EXPA/Slovencik
