The 2025 Burgenland state election took place on 19 January 2025. The governing Social Democrats (SPÖ) lost their absolute majority and needed a coalition partner to govern. The People's Party (ÖVP) lost significantly and received its worst result ever in the state. Conversely, the Freedom Party (FPÖ) more than doubled its share and received its best result ever. The Green Party (GRÜNE) remained in the Landtag while slightly reducing its vote share. NEOS failed once again to enter the state parliament. Turnout was at almost 79% – an increase of four percent compared to the last election.

Background In the 2020 state election, the SPÖ gained 8.0 percentage points to 49.9% of the vote and, with 19 out of 36 mandates, achieved an absolute majority for the first time since the 2010 state election, when it lost it. With 30.6%, the ÖVP came in second place. Despite an increase of about 1.5 percentage points, the vote share corresponded to its second-worst state election in Burgenland since 1945. This was followed by the FPÖ and the Greens with 9.8% and 6.7% respectively, with the FPÖ suffering losses of 5.3 percentage points and the Greens recording a slight increase of 0.3 percentage points – the best result in Burgenland state elections since the Greens first run. The NEOS and the alliance Liste Burgenland did not manage to enter or re-enter the state parliament with 1.7% and 1.3% respectively due to the barrier clause. For state elections in Burgenland, a 4% electoral threshold applies.

After the election, an SPÖ sole government was formed under Governor Hans-Peter Doskozil. It was confirmed on 17 February 2020 with 35 out of 36 votes, i.e. with votes from all parties represented in the newly elected Burgenland state parliament including one invalid vote.

In May 2024, the FPÖ state party executive committee initially elected Alexander Petschnig as FPÖ top candidate. However, in October 2024 the FPÖ state party executive committee agreed on Norbert Hofer as FPÖ top candidate. For the Greens, state spokeswoman Anja Haider-Wallner was elected top candidate. The ÖVP top candidate is Christian Sagartz. In November 2024, NEOS elected state spokesman Christoph Schneider as the top candidate.

The former FPÖ politician Géza Molnár announced a candidacy with his own Liste Hausverstand ("Common Sense List").

Electoral system The 36 seats of the Landtag of Burgenland are elected via open list proportional representation in a two-step process. The seats are distributed between seven multi-member constituencies, corresponding to the seven districts of Burgenland (the statutory cities of Eisenstadt and Rust are combined with Eisenstadt-Umgebung District). Apportionment of the seats is based on the results of the most recent census.

For parties to receive any representation in the Landtag, they must either win at least one seat in a constituency directly, or clear a 4 percent state-wide electoral threshold. Seats are distributed in constituencies according to the Hare quota, with any remaining seats allocated using the D'Hondt method at the state level, to ensure overall proportionality between a party's vote share and its share of seats.

In addition to voting for a political party, voters may cast preferential votes for specific candidates of that party, but are not required to do so. These additional votes do not affect the proportional allocation based on the vote for the party or list, but can change the rank order of candidates on a party's lists at the state and constituency level. Voters may cast one preferential vote at the state level, or three at the constituency level. A voter may not cross party-lines to cast a preference vote for a candidate of another party; such preference votes are invalid.

Contesting parties Name Ideology Leader 2020 result Votes (%) Seats SPÖ Social Democratic Party of Austria Social democracy Hans Peter Doskozil 49.9% ÖVP Austrian People's Party Christian democracyLiberal conservatism Christian Sagartz 30.6% FPÖ Freedom Party of Austria National conservatismRight-wing populismEuroscepticism Norbert Hofer 9.8% GRÜNE The Greens – The Green Alternative Green politicsProgressivism Anja Haider-Wallner 6.7% NEOS NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum LiberalismPro-Europeanism Christoph Schneider 2.3%

In addition to the parties already represented in the Landtag, one party collected enough signatures to be placed on the ballot: Liste Hausverstand (Common Sense List)

Opinion polls Polling firm Fieldwork date Samplesize SPÖ ÖVP FPÖ Grüne NEOS MFG Others Lead 2025 state election 19 Jan 2025 – 46.4 22.0 23.1 5.7 2.1 – 0.8 23.3 IFDD/BVZ13 Nov–6 Dec 202480047212542–122 Peter Hajek/SPÖ Burgenland1–21 Apr 2022600542310634–32 Peter Hajek/SPÖ Burgenland 26 Nov–7 Dec 2020 503 53 23 9 8 3 4– 11 Peter Hajek/SPÖ Burgenland 3–14 Sep 2020 600 51 25 14 7 2 1 – 8–12 Peter Hajek/SPÖ Burgenland March 2020 – 51 29 9 8 – 3 – 17 2020 state election 26 Jan 2020 – 49.9 30.6 9.8 6.7 1.7 – 1.3 19.3

Results Party Votes % +/− Seats +/− Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) 90,606 46.38 –3.55 17 –2 Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) 45,110 23.09 +13.30 9 +5 Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) 42,923 21.97 –8.61 8 –3 The Greens – The Green Alternative (GRÜNE) 11,062 5.66 –1.06 2 ±0 NEOS – The New Austria (NEOS) 4,018 2.06 +0.34 0 ±0 Liste Hausverstand (incl. LBL) 1,622 0.83 –0.43 0 New Invalid/blank votes 1,804 – – – – Total 197,145 100 – 36 0 Registered voters/turnout 250,400 78.73 +3.79 – –Source: Burgenland Government

Results by constituency Constituency SPÖ FPÖ ÖVP Grüne NEOS Totalseats Turnout % % % % % Eisenstadt36.319.626.412.23.676.2 Eisenstadt-Umgebung 49.8 20.4 20.2 6.1 2.6 79.5 Güssing 44.2 23.3 26.4 4.2 1.4 80.9 Jennersdorf 46.8 28.2 18.4 4.5 1.4 76.3 Mattersburg 47.7 23.5 19.7 6.0 2.3 78.5 Neusiedl am See 45.5 23.2 22.3 5.9 2.3 77.0 Oberpullendorf 47.0 20.5 24.5 5.4 1.7 79.8 Oberwart 46.7 25.7 20.7 4.7 1.6 79.7Rust44.926.816.96.63.479.1 Remaining seats Total 46.4 17 23.1 9 22.0 8 5.7 2 2.1 0 36 78.7 Source: orf.at Burgenland Government

Aftermath After losing the absolute majority in the Landtag, Governor Doskozil (SPÖ) did not initially state a preference for a future coalition partner, but said he and his team will first talk with the other three parties (FPÖ, ÖVP and GRÜNE). He announced he will then choose the party as partner with the most overlapping support on the various issues facing the state of Burgenland. On 27 January, Doskozil declared that the SPÖ and GRÜNE would negotiate a governing coalition. The new SPÖ-GRÜNE government was sworn into office on 6 February.

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