Austrian far-right FPÖ loses massively in parliamentary elections

Markus Salzmann

Yesterday’s parliamentary elections in Austria resulted in considerable losses for the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and the social-democratic SPÖ. The conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) of former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and the Greens benefited from the shift. Kurz can now form a government coalition with the FPÖ, the SPÖ or the Greens to continue his right-wing policy.

According to the preliminary final result—postal votes will not be counted until Monday night—the ÖVP total will reach more than 38 percent, an increase of around 7 percent. The SPÖ will lose over five percent, with 21.5 percent of the vote. It is the worst-ever SPÖ result in an election for the National Council, the lower house of the Austrian parliament.

The FPÖ will lose 9 percent compared to the previous elections, for a total of 17 percent. Just behind are the Greens, who failed in the last election at the four percent hurdle, now increased to 12 percent. The liberal Neos will also be represented in parliament, with slightly more than 7 percent.

The result shows that the far right has no mass support. The so-called “Ibiza affair” was only the most striking expression of this. The ÖVP-FPÖ coalition government fell at the end of May after only 18 months. A video, secretly recorded in Ibiza, which showed then-FPÖ boss Heinz-Christian Strache offered government contracts to a supposed Russian investor in exchange for election assistance, triggered the crisis. Since then, Austria has been temporarily governed by a technocratic government.

The FPÖ reacted with an aggressive, far-right election campaign, attacking refugees and foreigners. A few days before the election, the Vienna Public Prosecutor’s Office announced it was investigating former Vice-Chancellor and FPÖ leader Strache on suspicion of embezzlement. Strache, his former office manager and his former bodyguard allegedly submitted inadmissible invoices to the party, thereby damaging its assets.

As the election results became known, a mood of crisis developed in the FPÖ. “We do not interpret it as our goal to want to enter into government negotiations here. The voters did not make us strong enough to do this,” Strache said in his explanatory statement. Voters had given the party a “mandate for a new start,” he said. There was also talk of a split in the FPÖ on election night.

In the SPÖ there was a mood of crisis as well, after its historic collapse. In 1979 the party ruled alone with 51 percent of the votes; by 1999 it had fallen to 33 percent; and in the last two elections it reached its lowest point to date, with 26 percent. This decline is also expressed in the fact that the party’s top candidate, doctor Pamela Rendi-Wagner, had only recently joined the SPÖ.

Politically, the SPÖ was barely distinguishable from the ÖVP and FPÖ in the election campaign. When it comes to the issues of refugee policy, internal security and social “reforms,” all the parties are on the same line. Most recently, the SPÖ had dropped any criticism of the introduction of the 12-hour day by the ÖVP-FPÖ government. Rendi-Wagner had declared that they would form a coalition with Sebastian Kurz to prevent the FPÖ from participating in the government.

At the same time, Rendi-Wagner left the field to the right wing within the party. The SPÖ leader in the Tyrol region, Georg Dornauer, who indirectly demanded an alliance with the FPÖ in an interview with a right-wing radical magazine, and Hans-Peter Doskozil, who has already formed a coalition with the FPÖ in Burgenland, set the tone in the party.