Vote in the Austrian Federal Election (for real this time!!)

[Josquius]

I checked who the tattoo guy I voted for is...and though from a silly party it seems he does speak a lot of sense.

[Syt]

Ok, to reveal:


Madeleine Petrovic, independent list. Used to be part of Greens, but during Corona went hard anti-vaxx and campaigned against Pfizer and Bill Gates.


Fayad Mulla, KEINE von denen (NONE of the above). Human rights activist; received a prize for uncovering illegal practices around pushing back migrants crossing the Mediterranean. Irrelevant protest party.


Andreas Babler, SPÖ. The social democrats have been struggling for a long time now. While their previous party chair, Rendi-Wagner, was quite competent (IMO) they've been struggling to engage with voters and their topics, and Babler has not improved that by much.


Dominik Wlazny, BIER. It started as a joke/satirical party (similar to Die Partei in Germany). However, they did gain some seats in local elections. Wlazny is a trained medical doctor and musician. For these elections the party (or rather: Wlazny - without him the party would immediately disappear, I think) they're trying to offer more of a "serious" program (generally left-ish and progressive), and I think they may have chance of getting into parliament by gaining protest votes from people who don't want to vote right-wing.


Tobias Schweiger, KPÖ. The Communists have in recent years had some surprise wins. E.g. the mayor of Graz, Austria's second largest city, is from the KPÖ - certainly helped by Graz being a major university city. That said, those successes come IMHO from the weakness of the SPÖ, with the KPÖ picking up topics that were usually covered by the SPÖ (social security, affordable housing/costs of living). Overall I'd classify the modern KPÖ as more social democrat that communist/socialist, but definietly on the left end of the Social Democrat spectrum. Of course the term "Communism" will still scare off many voters.


Werner Kogler, Greens. Vice chancellor in the current government. Overall the Greens struggle with disappointed voters. They implemented some of their goals, but they were the clearly weaker partner in the government with the conservatives and had to compromise on many things.


Beate Meinl-Reisinger, NEOS. A curious party, mostly classical liberals (or libertarians if you will). They mostly aim at reducing bureaucracy, regulations, state administration etc. Which is needed to some degree in Austria IMO. Not a big fan of their "Austrians don't work enough, so we need to make it more attractive to work overtime" agenda, deregulating the capital market, cutting back welfare to make sure "working pays off." They want to invest in eduction (much needed, IMO), though I did chuckle that they include in their program a point "Kein Kind zurücklassen" - No child left behind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act).


Karl Nehammer, ÖVP. Current chancellor. IMO far better than Kurz was, but still fairly conservative - and, unsually, free of major scandals or allegations of corruption, which are often the bane of the major parties after decades in the halls of power. He did have a few mess ups, like when he said no kid in Austria has to be hungry or go without a warm meal because after all McDonalds sells burgers for 1.20, after all (which they don't anymore ). Clearly a "let's stay the course" party.


Herbert Kickl, FPÖ. Often ridiculed for his short stature, or his stubborn insistence on creating a horseback police unit during his time as Interior Minister, he has been the ideological brains of the FPÖ for a long time, while Strache and Hofer were the faces. He's not very popular in the population, but the FPÖ profits from a general malaise/discontent at the moment. Immigration is the big topic, but there's a general political unhappiness which seems common in many countries - things are changing, people are disoriented. They mostly pick up voters from ÖVP and SPÖ. And every time those parties try to co-opt topics from the FPÖ they lose votes to them. Their campaign has been less aggressive than usual, and if they get into power it's not likely the material situation of the "common folks" will improve much - they're quite business friendly with tendencies towards corruption; even more so than the other parties, IMO. But I think these days a lot of people don't necessary look at what's the bottom line on their bank account but how they feel about things. And if they make things worse for the "right" people, then their voters will, at least for a while, be quite happy. As said before, if Strache/Hofer were still in good graces, the FPÖ would look at an easy win in the elections, currently they're head to head with the ÖVP.

[Syt]

The Austrian Press Agency has an average of the major election polls since the last one on their site. Note: In Austria you need 4% to get into parliament.



Also, ÖVP have said they wouldn't form a government with the FPÖ, or with a chancellor Kickl.

However, ÖVP have not been reliably keeping such promises in the past, and I could see a small change in power within ÖVP and joining with the FPÖ again if it means they can stay in government.

[Admiral Yi]

Beate Meinl-Reisinger, NEOS. A curious party, mostly classical liberals (or libertarians if you will). They mostly aim at reducing bureaucracy, regulations, state administration etc. Which is needed to some degree in Austria IMO. Not a big fan of their "Austrians don't work enough, so we need to make it more attractive to work overtime" agenda, deregulating the capital market, cutting back welfare to make sure "working pays off." They want to invest in eduction (much needed, IMO), though I did chuckle that they include in their program a point "Kein Kind zurücklassen" - No child left behind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act).

[Syt]

I was going to call them the Yi Party.

[Richard Hakluyt]

"Dominik Wlazny, BIER. It started as a joke/satirical party (similar to Die Partei in Germany). However, they did gain some seats in local elections. Wlazny is a trained medical doctor and musician. For these elections the party (or rather: Wlazny - without him the party would immediately disappear, I think) they're trying to offer more of a "serious" program (generally left-ish and progressive), and I think they may have chance of getting into parliament by gaining protest votes from people who don't want to vote right-wing."

I am also happy with my vote 

[Josquius]

"Dominik Wlazny, BIER. It started as a joke/satirical party (similar to Die Partei in Germany). However, they did gain some seats in local elections. Wlazny is a trained medical doctor and musician. For these elections the party (or rather: Wlazny - without him the party would immediately disappear, I think) they're trying to offer more of a "serious" program (generally left-ish and progressive), and I think they may have chance of getting into parliament by gaining protest votes from people who don't want to vote right-wing."

I am also happy with my vote 

Me too. I had a look at their website before hand and some of their little policies are quite great. I like the poster limitation.

I'm curious what exactly they're talking about with their land use stuff however. Its unclear.

https://www.bierpartei.eu/menu/

[Syt]

In Austria, about 13 hectars of natural soil are lost to building activity - housing, street, parking spaces ... that's about 20 football pitches. In recent years there's been calls to slow this down or to renaturalize more areas (Vienna could use that - for many years the city planners loved covering open areas in stone, asphalt, and concrete, and it's only slowly changing).

Biggest problem: local planning is in the hands of local authorities, usually run by local business interests (it's quite common in small to mid-sized communities that the local business greats are also in politics, being mayor's etc.), with limited reach for federal laws to affect them. So you would have to restrict local communities' planning rights first, and that's hard to pish through.

[Josquius]

In Austria, about 13 hectars of natural soil are lost to building activity - housing, street, parking spaces ... that's about 20 football pitches. In recent years there's been calls to slow this down or to renaturalize more areas (Vienna could use that - for many years the city planners loved covering open areas in stone, asphalt, and concrete, and it's only slowly changing).

Biggest problem: local planning is in the hands of local authorities, usually run by local business interests (it's quite common in small to mid-sized communities that the local business greats are also in politics, being mayor's etc.), with limited reach for federal laws to affect them. So you would have to restrict local communities' planning rights first, and that's hard to pish through.

The first bit alarmed me a little. Sounded like the Hobbit faction of the English Greens, just opposed to all development anywhere ever.
The second bit though sounds a lot more reasonable. Its an issue in countries with municipalities have too much power that they can end up competing against each other rather than thinking holistically.

[Syt]

The main issue is that planners often look at short-term gains and don't consider long-term effects. Like increased flood risks, and if the road to farmer Karl really needs to be expanded at community expense so his summer tourists can reach him slightly more easily. Or if there needs to be another big parking lot for the expansion of the shops that move from the centers to the periphery. Also to be noted that almost none of that ground usage is for public transport in the countryside (which is incredibly lacking).

[grumbler]

I thinking that looking up the candidates and voting based on their policies rather than their appearance is cheating. The whole reason for not providing names in the OP is to force Languishites to choose candidates based on superficial evidence and then sharing their reasoning according to that evidence.

[Zanza]

The party.

[Sophie Scholl]

I thinking that looking up the candidates and voting based on their policies rather than their appearance is cheating. The whole reason for not providing names in the OP is to force Languishites to choose candidates based on superficial evidence and then sharing their reasoning according to that evidence.

I tend to look them up after as follow-ups like Syt's don't always happen in terms of who they are and what they represent. I find the little glimpses into different area's politics intriguing. Which I presume is somewhat the goal of such things?

[Zanza]

Very ugly result.

[Syt]

These days Austria remembers the progrom night of November 1938. The Jewish community has (as always) invited members of the government and parliament to commemorate it together, but explicitly didn't invite any FPÖ politicians, notably parliament president Rosenkranz.

For background - while not as public as others in his beliefs, he is a member of the German-nationalist student fraternity "Libertas". They were one of the first in the 1860s to ban Jews from joining their ranks, and in 2011 published a declaration protesting a move from fellow right-wing fraternities to loosen the definition of "German heritage" as requirement for protective members, saying they might as well get rid of the fratenerities, saying it would be "treason" and would surrender the fraternities' "Inner Self." Rosenkranz himself has said that the fraternity had to implement the anti-Jew clauses in the 1800s, because Jewish students were over-represented (I'm not sure if he differentiated between "Jews" and "Germans"/"Austrians). The freaternity also awarded the neo-nazi (and now banned) "Bund Freier Jugennd" and award for standing up against the national values. Rosenkranz defended that money went to the BFJ from the fraternity, because it was "only for a few harmless pamphlets." On their website the fraternity gives a quick run down of their history:
- prosecuted by the Kaiser because too revolutionary (or rather too cozy to Germany, tbh)
- fought the First Republic because too social
- banned during Ständestaat (Austro-Fascism) because too national
- dissolved during the Third Reich because too elitist
- marginalized during the Second Republic because not re-educated enough
- defamed by the 68 protest generation and their descendentas, because too social, too national, too elitist, not re-educated enough, not politically correct enough
(I know people joke about right-wingers having a victim complex, but come on! )

Rosenkranz also wrote several times for Die Aula which started as academic paper of fraternities but by the 2000s was a place for right wing propaganda and antisemitism. I recall a hubbub about an article saying that it was terrible for the surrounding areas that the concentration camp Mauthausen was liberated because suddenly you had hordes and gangs of criminals roaming the countryside.

Anyways, after not being invited for the offical event, Rosenkranz wanted to lay down a wreath by himself, in front of the Holocaust memorial on Judenplatz.

However, Jewish students had surrounded the memorial and refused to let him lay down the parliament's wreath, because they didn't want the memory of their people and (in some cases) families spat on by him.

Rosenkranz claimed they were violating laws and ignoring him as representative of Austrian democracy and asked police to remove the students so he could lay down the wreath. The police (probably aware that it would look really bad if police used force to remove Jews from a Jewish memorial) said that they can't do it for the sake of laying down a wreath.

Rosenkranz was visibly annoyed, saying that he "bows to their violence" ( ) and said Viktor Frankl would be ashamed. Frankl was a nazi victim who in the 80s spoke out against the concept of collective guilt (which the FPÖ loves about him) but that everyone is responsible for their own actions (which the FPÖ ignores) and he was quite outspoken against the right. The students replied that Frankl would have stood with them to which Rosenkranz looked visible perplexed (maybe he assumed the young'uns wouldn't know the name).

Anyways, his post as parliament president comes with a few additional functions. For example he's the head of the National Funds for Victims of National Socialism, and the Fund for Maintenance of Jewish Cemeteries. He would also be the one to award the Simon-Wiesenthal-Prize against Antisemitism. The FPÖ had voted against naming the prize after Simon Wiesenthal who did much of his work from Vienna, because Wiesenthal had uncovered that former FPÖ-chair Friedrich Peter had been an SS officer. Oskar Deutsch, head of the Jewish Cultural Community in Austria has already declared he will abstain from all sessions of those committees as long as Rosenkranz is participating in and chairing them.