Smallest increases in votes, a smaller minus than expected, mandates held, polls as a starting point, etc. – no argument is too stupid. This election is different: five parties can be absolutely satisfied with the result, quite rightly so; only for one was the debacle so obvious that even the most cunning spin doctor could probably think of nothing more.

The three “small” ones: From jubilation to disappointment

At the bottom, the story is quickly told. The Greens have had to realise that they are by no means so structurally anchored in society that they would be forgiven for treating the best horse in the stable poorly. Sure-footed and miles away from the issues important to voters, they have brought themselves to the brink of their existence (at the time of writing this commentary, the counting of postal votes was still missing) and will – regardless of whether they ultimately make it into parliament or not – have to reinvent themselves to an extent, finding a raison d’être that goes beyond climate lamentation and anti-FPÖ rhetoric.

The Neos remained stable at a low level, but could become the tip of the scales.
(cc-by-sa Nicole Heiling)

The old warhorse Peter Pilz, on the other hand, has, as so often in his political career, proven correct political instinct and correctly assessed his own standing, that of the topics associated with him, and that of his former party colleagues. He seized the opportunity and succeeded with a left-wing populist party – the idea of “certainly not founding a new party” was quickly abandoned, at the latest after taking a closer look at the Party Financing Act.

The great fear of the Neos was being crushed by the lost-vote argument in the escalation of the leadership question between the three major parties. Through a well-conceived, largely error-free election campaign, albeit with illegible poster slogans, they succeeded in never entering this disastrous debate, but instead positioned themselves throughout most of the campaign as a small but stable force for substantive renewal in the National Council.

Kurz campaign: Strategically well executed

For ÖVP leader Sebastian Kurz, his substantive consistency above all paid off in the election outcome.
By Dragan Tatic, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61063684

Things got heated at times with the domestic political triumvirate of the ÖVP, SPÖ, and FPÖ. The ÖVP, which mutated from black to turquoise under new chairman Sebastian Kurz, introduced a new form of election campaign staging to the domestic stage under the professional leadership of campaign expert Philipp Maderthaner, outshining substantive weaknesses here and there.

However, a key success factor was the consistent “stay on the message”, which earned Kurz criticism in the Twitterati bubble of political junkies but was precisely tuned to the needs of the voters. Post-election analyses show this very clearly. Collateral damage, caused by the SPÖ’s successful expansion of the Silberstein affair to the ÖVP, slightly clouded the campaign finish, but did not change the great success of the ÖVP.

SPÖ: Stable after all despite turbulence

The SPÖ delivered the most exciting result. With around 27 per cent of the vote, party leader Kern naturally confirms the historically worst result for the Social Democrats; however, given the disastrous starting position, respect must be paid. An election campaign can hardly run worse than was the case this time.

A respected campaign professional threw in the towel early, as he apparently smelled a rat; brawling employees, internal party wing fights, and finally the fatal leaks with unflattering internal psychograms of the Federal Chancellor and about the activities of the internationally well-known consultant Tal Silberstein, who organised Facebook pages of questionable taste and other low blows for the SPÖ.

Blame it on the Weatherman

The SPÖ under Christian Kern remained surprisingly stable. The reasons for this, however, were not necessarily their own merits.
© SPÖ/Zach-Kiesling

The subsequent communication strategy of the SPÖ was remarkable, according to which no one was actually responsible, no one knew anything, everyone distanced themselves, but a lot of money was still paid. What remained was a party employee who apparently acted on his own initiative, without coordination with the federal managing director and campaign manager, or even the party leader. A remarkable life of its own…

It is fascinating that this spin worked and the SPÖ actually succeeded in projecting an image where everyone was equally shabby and everyone was equally involved. The question arises: what does a party like the SPÖ have to do to be truly punished by the voter? One does not know. What is certain is that the much-maligned Vienna SPÖ stood like a rock, ensuring a more than respectable result for the battered federal SPÖ. Internally, the result represents a strengthening of the anti-FPÖ faction under the leadership of Vienna Mayor Michael Häupl; those seeking links with the Blues, such as Burgenland’s Hans Niessl, were weakened.

Freedom Party composure

The election campaign ran relatively peacefully for the FPÖ, after the role of the “bad boy”, usually left to them, was taken over by the SPÖ.

Kern, Pilz, Strache: Three unequal opponents. Will they remain so?
By SPÖ Presse und Kommunikation – CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63411766

Under the leadership of the longest-serving party leader Heinz-Christian Strache, the turbulence between the SPÖ and ÖVP came to their aid, as they had been under substantive pressure until then because the Kurz-ÖVP cheekily but consistently snatched their core topics of asylum, integration, and immigration from their plate and presented them to voters in much more measured language.

The result is only just below the historic high of 1999, placing the third camp in the position of kingmaker. A fascinating detail is the realisation that, after the presidential election, the FPÖ is now faltering in Vienna for the second time and is not getting the necessary results onto the streets there to be even further ahead nationwide.

Coalition poker

Results by federal state. Source: BMI / wahl17.bmi.gv.at

Which finally brings us to the question of what happens next. All signs point to a Black-Blue coalition. However, a hard-nosed negotiation poker is to be expected, where it remains to be seen who will back down further. The FPÖ has the strategically optimal starting position in its luggage: a strong result itself, plus two options due to third place, both of which are so strong that they can enter negotiations with sufficient self-confidence. For Christian Kern, Blue-Red is the only constellation to remain Chancellor and is simultaneously of the greatest importance for the power-conscious SPÖ, as it is otherwise extremely weakly positioned in most states and levels.

The ÖVP, on the other hand, is also under considerable pressure, because Sebastian Kurz was not made chairman to be leader of the opposition, and a new edition of Black-Red under different conditions would probably not correspond to the will of Kurz supporters; moreover, such a new edition is probably not very realistic given the low blows recently exchanged between the two parties.

What is currently certain is a historic election in which the SPÖ was voted out as the Chancellor’s party, the ÖVP achieved first place – a historically rare result – the Greens have crumbled and must fight for existence, and with the Liste Pilz, a new actor is on the field.

It remains interesting.

Patrick Minar is a partner at the Vienna communications agency Schneider | Minar | Jenewein Consulting. Twitter: @LitigationTweet

Paneuropa post-election analysis.

Part 1: “The next move?” by Lukas Leitner.

https://paneuropa.at/der-naechste-zug-versuch-einer-nachwahlprognose/

Part 2: “Left-wing deficits as fathers of the right-wing shift” by Wilhelm Ortmayr.

Linke Defizite als Väter des Rechtsrucks

Part 3: “Five winners, one loser” by Patrick Minar

Der Beitrag Five winners, one loser erschien zuerst auf Paneuropa.

Almost all forecasts were within a margin of plus or minus two percent, and this for months on end. This proves two things: the empiricists did a good job, and Austrians did not make their decision impulsively at the last minute.

All the more seriously, then, must the parties take these results and discuss them in detail. Initial reactions from the SPÖ and the Greens – somewhere between voter and media bashing – suggest the exact opposite. Yet, these two groups, in particular, urgently need an honest self-assessment – regardless of the Social Democrats’ final position or whether the Greens remain in parliament.

Green Defeat: Detachment from Reality as the Main Reason

The Greens (alongside the defunct BZÖ and Team Stronach parties) are paying the price for this election. Ten months after Alexander van der Bellen’s victory, they are losing everything, to the benefit of almost all others. And no Green should claim they weren’t warned. With an unparalleled resistance to advice, the party has stumbled from one grave error to the next. The often-postulated ‘high conflict resolution potential of women’ was completely absent in a party that has become increasingly female in recent years. Flora Petrik and Peter Pilz send their regards.

The bicycle has long become a symbol of the attributions of Green politics in Austria. It stands for a fundamentally positive signal, while larger problems are ignored.
From © Photo: Ra Boe / Wikipedia /, CC BY-SA 3.0 at, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23305035

But they alone are not to blame for the disaster. The movement, which set out three and a half decades ago to free Austria from corruption and cronyism and to optimise its ecological awareness and actions, has become a ‘socially romantic bunch of reality deniers’, according to many who this time voted for Pilz or even red/turquoise. With prohibitions, wagging fingers, and the constant demand for even more laws, the Greens have alienated much liberal potential. Diesel tax and road tolls drove away many working people, especially commuters. And with primary issues such as inclusion, integration, and education, one might gain a virtuous profile, but certainly not win elections.

For months, the Green leadership refused to hear any of this. And they vehemently refused to define the primary issue of ‘migration’ in such a way that voters would feel that politics had, firstly, the situation under control and, secondly, a Plan B. Under these circumstances, even the genuinely lived antithesis to the FPÖ no longer served as a good election argument. The consequences are well known. The electorate turned away from the Greens and ‘returned home’. Partially to the movement’s roots in Pilz’s form, partially to the People’s Party, and in the cities, to the SPÖ.

Weakening Social Democracy

The latter, however, should beware of celebrating the retention of the worst election result in its history as a success, or of blaming certain tabloid newspapers. An election in which almost 20 percent of the votes are in flux, without gaining ground,

Chancellor Christian Kern presented his performance to the media as a success. However, he had no real gains to show for it.
© Federal Chancellery / Regina Aigner

should be understood as an alarm signal. For the absence of losses is probably only due to Green loan votes, which sought to prevent a conservative chancellor, and by no means to a better or more future-oriented programme. ‘Successful politics must answer people’s question: How will we live tomorrow?’ Bruno Kreisky said, in essence, 50 years ago. ‘As well as yesterday’ is neither a conclusive nor an encouraging answer to this question for the future.

Moreover, it is striking that the Social Democratic gain zones are primarily bourgeois areas, not working-class districts. It is therefore by no means true that the regionally significant gains of the SPÖ indicate that urban agglomerations, where migration and direct contact between cultures truly occur, voted against the right-wing populist mainstream.

The opposite is true. In Vienna, for example, the inner-city districts, and in Salzburg and other provincial capitals, the centres and more affluent parts of the city, shifted from Green to SPÖ. Precisely those districts where migrants are hardly present. It was left-liberal educated citizens and higher earners who strengthened the SPÖ’s back – those whose comfort zone would most likely be threatened by a ‘rightward shift’. Still completely out of touch, the SPÖ is losing ground in rural areas and noticeably among residents of urban ‘hotspot regions’. It is no surprise: Kern scores points in the bourgeois ‘bubbles’ – the public housing estates remain closed to him.

Wilhelm Ortmayr is a freelance journalist. He lives and works in Salzburg and Vienna.

Paneuropa post-election analysis.

Part 1: “The next move?” by Lukas Leitner.

https://paneuropa.at/der-naechste-zug-versuch-einer-nachwahlprognose/

Part 2: ‘Failings of the Left Fuel the Rightward Shift’ by Wilhelm Ortmayr.

Part 3: ‘Five Winners, One Loser’ by Patrick Minar

Fünf Gewinner, ein Verlierer

Der Beitrag Failings of the Left Fuel the Rightward Shift erschien zuerst auf Paneuropa.