Another Round
Austria's Beer Party has confirmed it will participate in this year's parliamentary elections even though it did not meet its membership and fundraising goals
Servus!
And welcome back. Austria is due to hold legislative elections later this year, likely on September 29, and the race just got a little more crowded. Earlier this year, the musician and local Viennese politician Dominik Wlazny—who, prior his run for the presidency in 2022, was better known by his stage name, Marco Pogo—announced that his Beer Party would enter the parliamentary contest provided it hit two benchmarks—20,000 new members and €1.2 million in fundraising—by the end of April.
Wlazny managed to achieve neither of these goals. By the close of last month, the Beer Party had found fewer than 10,000 new members and only gathered 55 percent of its fundraising target. Nonetheless, he announced that the Beer Party would compete for seats in parliament anyway—hardly the most honest start for a frothy, satirical protest party that has hitherto been a receptacle for voters tried of the usual way politicians are perceived to behave in Austria. If you can’t beat them, join them.
So too has Wlazny been vague on the details of what the Beer Party’s run for parliament will mean in practice. At a press conference confirming his party’s participation in the election, he took no questions from journalists—another troubling development. The Beer Party currently has no manifesto, though its website lists some bullet point beliefs that indicate a broad, left-of-center agenda on issues like healthcare, education, and the environment. The party has begun to recruit people to run on its party list, none of whom have experience in politics at the federal level.
Although their deficiencies are clear, what Wlazny and the Beer Party do have is brand recognition following the aforementioned 2022 presidential election. In a contest in which the Greens, center-right People’s Party (ÖVP), center-left Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), and the liberal NEOS all got out of the way so that the incumbent, Alexander Van der Bellen, could have a clear run for a second term, endorsing him either actively or, in the case of the ÖVP, passively, Wlazny finished third with 8.3 percent of the vote. His support came from across the political spectrum, though more so from supporters of third parties like the Greens, NEOS, and the defunct left-populist party JETZT.
Despite the Beer Party’s run so far lacking any real substance, polling does indicate it is on the verge of gaining enough support to enter parliament—another indication of a certain collapse in faith in the political mainstream among Austrian voters. The most recent Market/Der Standard poll shows the FPÖ out ahead on 29 percent, the SPÖ on 23 percent, the ÖVP on 20 percent, the NEOS on 10 percent, the Greens on 9 percent, and the Beer Party on 5 percent. Unique Research/profil, which also published a new poll at the end of April, had the Beer Party on 7 percent to the clear detriment of the SPÖ, Greens, and NEOS.
Because of the disparities in the available polling data, the potential consequences of a Beer Party run for a future coalition government remain unclear. It is obvious, though, that their entry into the race has thus far failed to put a dent in the FPÖ’s lead and has further divided and fractured the left-liberal vote in Austria, splitting it among four or—if one includes the insurgent Communist Party (KPÖ)—five parties. Should the Beer Party and KPÖ fail to enter parliament, the left-liberal bloc would end up suffering from wasted vote syndrome, thus strengthening the hand of the parties of the right, the FPÖ and ÖVP.
Bis bald!
Thank you for subscribing to the Vienna Briefing. Every recommendation helps, so if you know someone who might be interested in reading this newsletter, consider sharing it with them today.
The Vienna Briefing is a reader-supported publication made possible by your donations. If you would like to contribute to my work, think about sending me a tip.
RBI Remains Trapped
Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) has nixed a maneuver to transfer its profits out of Russia via a complicated deal involving the construction firm Strabag and the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. American authorities had warned the deal may not conform to international sanctions and threatened to exclude RBI from the U.S. banking system had RBI gone ahead with it.
Fritzl In Regular Jail
A court in Krems has ruled that Josef Fritzl can be transferred from a psychiatric unit to a normal prison, concluding his mental and physical health precluded him from “commit[ting] a criminal offense with serious consequences.” Fritzl, 89, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009 for the rape and enslavement of his daughter in a cellar beneath the family home.
Intifada Camp Cleared
Police cleared a pro-Palestinian tent encampment out of the University of Vienna’s main campus late Thursday night. The decision came after authorities concluded that the protest’s politics had become increasingly radicalized since its inception a few days prior, as evidenced by slogans glorifying the goals of Hamas and calls for an intifada.