Legislative elections were held in Austria on 28 September 2008 to elect the 24th National Council, the lower house of Austria's bicameral parliament. The snap election was called after Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) withdrew from the ruling grand coalition with the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) in July. Due to dissatisfaction with the governing parties, the opposition and minor parties were expected to make significant gains. Opinion polling indicated that up to seven parties could potentially win seats.
The SPÖ and ÖVP each suffered their worst election results in history up to this point, losing 6.1 and 8.3 percentage points respectively. The Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) captured the largest portion of these lost votes, each recording a six and a half-point swing. The Greens took small losses, while Liberal Forum (LiF) and Citizens' Forum Austria (FRITZ) both fell well short of the 4% electoral threshold, defying earlier expectations that they could enter the National Council. The result was perceived as a success for the right-wing populist and Eurosceptic parties.
Following the elections, Wilhelm Molterer resigned as chairman of the ÖVP and was replaced by agriculture minister Josef Pröll. The Greens' federal spokesman Alexander Van der Bellen, who had served since 1997, also resigned and was succeeded by his deputy Eva Glawischnig. Due to the Liberal Forum's failure to win seats, party founder Heide Schmidt and financier Hans-Peter Haselsteiner both announced their retirement from politics. Less than two weeks after the election, BZÖ leader and governor of Carinthia Jörg Haider died in a car accident.
A coalition between the SPÖ and the ÖVP was agreed upon on 23 November 2008 and was sworn in on 2 December 2008.
Background On 11 January 2007, the Gusenbauer cabinet (a grand coalition of SPÖ and ÖVP) was sworn into office. The newly formed government was criticised from the beginning from parts of the opposition and left-wing circles in the SPÖ for having failed to push through in the coalition negotiations most of the pledges and promises made in the election campaign.
The SPÖ began to fall back in the polls almost immediately. The government was frequently unable to agree on important decisions: The SPÖ demanded an antedated tax reform in 2009 instead of in 2010, which the ÖVP disagreed on; the proposal to help households hit by inflation with a tax gift of €100 was also denied by the ÖVP. The coalition partners also disagreed on the badly necessary health system reform. In the Tyrolean state election on 8 June 2008 the former ÖVP member Fritz Dinkhauser led his newly founded Citizens' Forum Tyrol to become the second-largest party, causing large losses to ÖVP and SPÖ and small losses to the Greens. Following this, internal criticism within the SPÖ of Gusenbauer grew, leading to the decision to designate infrastructure minister Werner Faymann as its new party leader. According to the plans at that time, Gusenbauer would have remained the leading candidate in the 2010 elections.
On 26 June 2008, Faymann and Gusenbauer wrote a letter to the editor of the leading Austrian tabloid Kronen Zeitung, declaring they were in favour of referendums on important EU topics, like new treaties after the already ratified Treaty of Lisbon or the accession of Turkey to the European Union. They did this without seeking the approval of either the party leadership or their coalition partner ÖVP; it was widely perceived by Austrian and foreign media as a populist action and in acquiesce to the Eurosceptic position of Kronen Zeitung. On 7 July 2008, ÖVP leader Wilhelm Molterer declared that he could not continue to work with the SPÖ (the precise words with which he opened the news conference were "That's enough!", Es reicht!). The ÖVP declared as the main reasons for the snap elections the change in the SPÖ's position on Europe and the planned dual leadership in the SPÖ, which the ÖVP claimed would make agreement on difficult issues even harder.
The snap election was officially called in a parliamentary session on 9 July 2008 through a joint resolution by SPÖ, ÖVP and Greens, which FPÖ and BZÖ supported; the election date of 28 September 2008 was confirmed by the government and the main committee on 10 July 2008. The term of the legislature was the third-shortest in Austrian history (after 1970–1971 and 1994–1995). SPÖ and ÖVP agreed to a so-called Stillhalteabkommen, an agreement according to which neither of the two parties would try to outvote the other with the votes of the opposition parties, although this agreement was revoked by Faymann on 25 August 2008.
The age required to have the right to vote had been reduced from 18 to 16 prior to the election in an electoral law reform enacted in 2007, which also had reduced the age required to stand in the election from 19 to 18, had introduced easier access to postal balloting and had lengthened the legislative term from four to five years. Another change was that different list names in the different states were no longer possible; the BZÖ had stood under a different name in Carinthia than in the rest of Austria in 2006. Turnout was initially expected to increase from the all-time low of 78.5% in 2006; more than 80% were expected to participate in the election according to early estimates, but it expectations changed to a decrease of turnout as the election day came closer. Postal balloting was expected to make up 7%–8% of the total vote; due to postal votes, the final result of the election would not be known until a week after the elections (on 6 October 2008). Postal ballots had to be sent to electoral commission together with a signed piece of paper stating the time and place when the vote had taken place; at a spot check in Salzburg, 20% of postal ballots were invalid because they lacked the signature or time and place. 9.27% of the voters (586,759 of 6,332,931 voters) had requested postal ballots, which meant that postal ballots could decisively change the election outcome.
Another part of the 2007 electoral reform was that it was now possible to accommodate election observers in the election process. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development declined the invitation to send observers, however, stating that the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights had insufficient funds to send observers on such short notice.
The Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung stated that Dinkhauser had "with hindsight been the first link in a chain of causation which led to the early elections, even though he had only wanted to force open the encrusted political landscape in Tyrol."
Contesting parties
The table below lists parties represented in the 23rd National Council. Name Ideology Leader 2006 result Votes (%) Seats SPÖ Social Democratic Party of Austria Social democracy Werner Faymann 35.3% ÖVP Austrian People's Party Christian democracy Wilhelm Molterer 34.3% GRÜNE The Greens Green politics Alexander Van der Bellen 11.1% FPÖ Freedom Party of Austria Right-wing populismEuroscepticism Heinz-Christian Strache 11.0% BZÖ Alliance for the Future of Austria National conservatismRight-wing populism Jörg Haider 4.1%
Qualified parties In addition to the parties already represented in the National Council, nine parties collected enough signatures to be placed on the ballot. Five of these were cleared to be on the ballot in all states, four of them only in some.
On the ballot in all 9 states Liberal Forum (LiF) Citizens' Forum Austria Fritz Dinkhauser's List (FRITZ) Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) Independent Citizens' Initiative Save Austria (RETTÖ) The Christians (DC)
On the ballot in some states only Left (Linke) – on the ballot only in Burgenland, Salzburg, Tyrol, Upper Austria, and Vienna Animal Rights Party (TRP) – on the ballot only in Vienna List Karlheinz Klement – on the ballot only in Carinthia List Strong – on the ballot only in Carinthia
Analyses and forecasts Analysts and pollsters offered different opinions on whether smaller extraparliamentary parties had chances to enter parliament or not. According to some pollsters, the FRITZ had very good chances of getting into parliament, and the LIF with its founder Schmidt as its leading candidate, as well; the conditions were as good as they had never been before for smaller parties, according to some. Analysts agreed that apart from LIF and FRITZ, all others would fail to enter parliament. Analysts furthermore asserted that the candidacy of the FRITZ would likely make the race for third place between Greens and FPÖ very competitive, as the FRITZ would likely gain protest votes which would otherwise go to the FPÖ. The critical time for the extraparliamentary parties was stated to be the very first phase of the campaign, when the larger parties had not yet really started campaigning and the smaller parties had a chance to gain publicity.
Following the announcement that Haider would return to federal politics, analysts held different opinions on the likely effects of this change. While the race for swing voters between ÖVP, FPÖ and BZÖ was seen to intensify, it was also remarked that Haider has lost much of his appeal and that it would be unlikely that the BZÖ would increase its share of votes just because of his candidacy. The race for third place between the Greens and the FPÖ was seen to be balanced (as Haider might draw votes from the FPÖ and the LIF from the Greens) or slightly in favour of the Greens. One analyst even expected that Haider would attempt to get the FPÖ to adopt a partner relationship with the BZÖ (similar to the Christian Democratic Union–Christian Social Union of Bavaria alliance in Germany), with the BZÖ only operating in Carinthia and the FPÖ in the rest of Austria, after the 2008 election. Stadler confirmed that this was the goal of the BZÖ. Strache explicitly ruled out such an alliance on 7 September 2008.
Four weeks before the election, analysts agreed that the climate was very good for the SPÖ following Faymann's announcement that he would take measures against rising prices, although they also cautioned that the SPÖ's victory was not yet a done deal. The FPÖ was seen as strongly increasing their share of the votes when compared to the 2006 election and the BZÖ was seen as having secured its stay in the National Council. The Greens were seen to be stagnating, while the extraparliamentary parties faced difficulties with entering parliament, with the chances of LIF and the FRITZ intact.
Former ÖVP leader Wolfgang Schüssel claimed on 4 September 2008 the ÖVP's low numbers in the polls were due to the large number of parties contesting the election and denied that the ÖVP had made mistakes in their election campaign so far. Analysts asserted that the Greens' decision to strongly support the animal rights activists remanded in custody under controversial circumstances (see above) might be risky, but that it might pay off through the increased publicity and mobilisation of core voters.
Only four possible coalitions were seen as likely to have a majority after the election: SPÖ–ÖVP, ÖVP–FPÖ–BZÖ, SPÖ–GRÜNE–BZÖ and SPÖ–FPÖ–BZÖ; all but a new grand coalition were seen as unlikely.
Campaign
Campaigning in the 2008 Austrian legislative election revolved around inflation, rising prices, transport, future treaties of the European Union, crime, integration, right to stay, education, privatisation of Austrian Airlines, budgets, TV schedule, fairness accord, the Eurofighter Typhoon contract renegotiation and the Role of the Kronen Zeitung.
Opinion polling
Election day