Red, Green, Pink, Black, Blue
2024 in Austria is going to be shaped by parliamentary elections which, as of the start of the year, are the far-right Freedom Party's to lose
Servus!
Happy new year! 2024 in Austrian politics is going to be entirely shaped by parliamentary elections, with all events drawn in by its gravitational pull. The date of the election is still to be set, though it must take place by the autumn at the latest. The precise date will be determined by whether the current coalition of the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) and the Greens—which has stuck together through thick and thin—holds until the end of its term. That European elections will take place on June 9 is another consideration.
The state of the race at the close of 2023 was as follows. The far-right Freedom Party was out in front on 30 percent, maintaining a lead in the polls they took in mid-November 2022. The Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) were in second on 24 percent, ahead of the ÖVP on 21 percent, the liberal NEOS on 10 percent, and the Greens on 9 percent. The Communist Party (KPÖ) were polling at 3 percent—below the electoral threshold, meaning all those votes would go to waste, diminishing in the end the size of the left-of-center bloc in the next parliament.
The 2019 general election was won by the ÖVP under the leadership of former chancellor Sebastian Kurz with 37.5 percent of the vote, the party’s best result since their landslide win in 2002. They were followed by the SPÖ on 21.2 percent, FPÖ on 16.2 percent, Greens on 13.9 percent, and NEOS on 8.1 percent. Were the current polling average replicated on election day 2024, it would represent a massive swing from the ÖVP to the FPÖ, a humiliation for the governing parties, and the NEOS’s best result in a parliamentary election.
Right now, the most likely outcome of the 2024 election remains an FPÖ-ÖVP coalition. The two parties were in government together from 2000 to 2005 and 2017 to 2019, and ever since Kurz took the ÖVP to the right on immigration—a position it continues to hold to, even though it brings them little reward these days—the two parties are closer to each other than ever on economic and social policy. The outstanding question remains whether the ÖVP would countenance making FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl chancellor, an issue on which the ÖVP is divided. It rather depends on what’s more important to them: power or principle.
An alternative to a right-wing government would be a three-party coalition encompassing the broad center of Austrian politics. That would involve the SPÖ, ÖVP, and one of either the NEOS or the Greens. The SPÖ would likely prefer the Greens and the ÖVP the NEOS; however, the NEOS’s growth and Green’s decline relative to 2019 would make former too buoyant to ignore. While having the two parties of state in the same government has inherent advantages vis-à-vis the social partnership, a river of distrust runs between the SPÖ and ÖVP, while as the German example has shown, a three-party coalition can be unwieldy and beget stasis and dissatisfaction both within and without.
All other options, at present, don’t have the numbers to form a majority in parliament: a resurrection of the SPÖ-ÖVP grand coalition; and a traffic light coalition involving the SPÖ, NEOS, and Greens. In any case, while there would be unity on social issues within a traffic light coalition, there are significant economic policy differences between the SPÖ’s left-social democratic outlook and the NEOS’s neoliberalism that would be hard to overcome. Two things, therefore, remain true. First, the FPÖ is in the driving seat heading into 2024. Second, whatever the outcome of the election, all roads to power lead through the ÖVP.
Bis bald!
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