After The Election

The far-right Freedom Party achieved a historic victory in Sunday's national election but may find themselves in opposition after coalition negotiations

Photo by Monique Carrati on Unsplash

Servus!

Ever since the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) took and then consolidated a lead in public polling in late 2022, it has felt as if the result of the next parliamentary elections was an inevitability—as if Austria were tied to the tracks as this unstoppable freight train was hurtling towards it. On Sunday night, the unavoidable came to pass. The FPÖ achieved its first victory in a national election since 1945, winning its largest share of the vote in the process.

The FPÖ finished on top with 28.9 percent of the vote, an increase of 12.7 pp compared to the last parliamentary elections in 2019. Behind them were the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) on 26.3 percent, the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) on 21.1 percent, the liberal NEOS on 9.1 percent, and the Greens on 8.2 percent. In the end, neither the Beer Party (2.0 percent) nor the Communist Party (KPÖ, 2.4 percent) secured enough support to leap over the 4 percent electoral threshold. Those votes simply went to waste.

There were geographical and other demographic factors that indicate the FPÖ’s path to its historic victory. FPÖ voters were more likely to live outside of Austria’s cities and have fewer years of formal education. But what really drove voters into the FPÖ’s arms was that they agreed with the party’s ideology and worldview, especially on immigration, a sense that the country was heading in the wrong direction, and skepticism towards parliamentary democracy. 28.9% of Austrians voted for the FPÖ, in other words, not because of where they live or where they went to school, but far more problematically, because they liked their policies.

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The ÖVP and Greens were punished for their five years in government and saw their vote decline by 11.1 pp and 5.7 pp respectively. As for the SPÖ, they received their worst ever election result since 1945. Supporters of SPÖ leader Andreas Babler were quick to blame negative media coverage and party in-fighting for the SPÖ’s woes, when in reality, by letting the left write their socio-economic platform, the party stagnated because all it did was swap out urban bobo left-of-center voters for traditional SPÖ supporters in ex-urban areas like Carinthia, Burgenland, and the Mur-Mürz Valley. Their manifesto lacked aspiration and offered nothing to the political center where elections are fought and won.

Austria’s parliamentary parties are currently putting together their negotiating teams ahead of preliminary discussions with a view to forming a government. In the next parliament, there will be, as now, five parliamentary parties: the FPÖ with 57 seats, the ÖVP with 51, the SPÖ with 41, the NEOS with 18, and the Greens with 16. With 92 seats needed for majority, there are, by my judgement, four possible future coalitions keeping in mind that liberal and left-wing parties will not cooperate with the FPÖ: SPÖ-ÖVP-NEOS (111), SPÖ-ÖVP-Greens (109), FPÖ-ÖVP (108), and ÖVP-SPÖ (92). But more on that in a moment.

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These initial conversations, then, could end up going one of two ways: a right-wing FPÖ-ÖVP coalition, or a revival of the grand ÖVP-SPÖ coalition with or without a third party, the NEOS or the Greens. The former relies on finding a solution to what or what not to do with FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl, for the ÖVP has been clear until now that there will be no coalition with the FPÖ if Kickl is part of the government. Either Kickl has to surrender his ambitions and step aside to facilitate a coalition with the ÖVP or the ÖVP has to get rid of its leader, Karl Nehammer, for someone willing to play second fiddle to Kickl and the FPÖ.

A grand coalition might, then, be a more attractive option for the ÖVP—not least because it would be the only realistic way for them to retain the chancellorship, a post it has held, more or less, since 2017. Given an ÖVP-SPÖ coalition would have a majority of one, they would require a third party to create a more stable majority in parliament. While the SPÖ would certainly prefer the Greens, the NEOS would be the more likely choice. They are more amenable to the ÖVP not only because of their common economic outlook but also because, after five years in government, a certain distrust divides the ÖVP from the Greens.

In the coming five years, Austria faces major challenges. It needs bring down its deficit, which may require difficult spending cuts, all while undertaking pension reform, healthcare reform, and education reform, integrating asylum recipients into the labor market, tackling the climate crisis, and passing a modernized national security strategy. The question is whether a grand coalition—with or without third party input—has the vision, drive, and capability to do all or any of this. Failure, after all, is not an option. That would only further empower the largest party excluded from government—the election’s winner, the FPÖ.

Bis bald!