The October 15 parliamentary elections in Austria have produced a remarkable outcome. After 15 years the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) returned to number one with 31.6 percent of the vote (62 seats). The Social Democrats came in second, with some 27 percent (52 seats), just barely outpolling the right-wing populist Freedom Party (FPÖ), which won 26 percent (51 seats). Meanwhile, the Green Party electorate followed the advice of their socialist friends, voting for the Social Democrats instead in order to block an ÖVP-Freedom Party coalition. They failed in that goal and in the process committed political suicide: The Green Party will not be represented in the Austrian Parliament—only a tiny green splinter group that broke ranks with the party leadership just before the elections. And the business oriented “Neos” once again achieved more than the 4 percent minimum required for entering Parliament.
That, in a nutshell, is what happened according to the votes and the numbers. But what really happened beyond the numbers, and what will happen next?
After a very dirty campaign, for which the Social Democrats bear the main responsibility, the young and charismatic leader of the ÖVP, Sebastian Kurz, prevailed. He is the clear winner of the elections, in particular if one remembers that some two years ago his party polled less than 20 percent of the vote. According to Austrian tradition, Kurz will receive the mandate from the Federal President to form a new government, and it is fairly obvious what he will do with that mandate. After the rows during the election campaign, and in view of the stalemate within the previous government formed by the two parties, there will be no new “Great Coalition” with the Social Democrats, but instead most likely an ÖVP-FPÖ coalition.
That is no surprise. What is at least a bit surprising, however, is that Kurz managed to portray himself as a challenger against a government in which he himself served as Foreign Minister. In a sense, he pulled a Macron: a young party insider who transforms himself through smoke and spin into a virtual outsider. Kurz did not jump totally outside his party as Macron did, but he transformed the ÖVP into a movement accented heavily by his own personality. He concentrated the campaign on himself as a young and outspoken leader, and at 31 years of age he will soon be the youngest head of government in Europe. For that he secured the approval of the various old hands of his party who grudgingly accepted their loss of influence (at least so far), because they realized that without a dramatic change their party would soon be out of business—a fate that has befallen many other establishment conservative parties in Europe. He also appealed to the many non-voters of the previous election, and to those of his party who had voted for the Freedom Party last time around.
The Social Democrats, who had feared finishing third behind the Freedom Party, succeeded in a last-ditch mobilizing effort that prevented disaster. At the end of the day, they did not lose votes despite the scandals connected to their dirty campaigning and the serious infighting between the left and right wings of the party, leading to the resignation of their Secretary General just two weeks before the elections.
The Freedom Party improved their score (by 5.5 percent), although not as much as they hoped, and not quite enough to gain second place. And the reason is that Kurz coopted the Freedom Party’s plank, but without their xenophobic rhetoric, increasing its take by 7.6 percent over the time before. In short, Kurz was able to do what fellow conservative Angela Merkel failed to do in Germany some weeks earlier; the Chancellor lost some 7.5 percent of the CDU’s support, yet still managed to remain at the head of the leading party.
Like Merkel, Kurz realized that the main concern of his fellow citizens was immigration: Austria had accepted some 90,000 immigrants in 2015, more than 1 percent of its population. For the United States this would amount proportionally to some four million immigrants in a single year. In Germany the “socialdemocratization” of the CDU/CSU under Merkel, which could not be reversed enough or fast enough before the election, left space that the right-wing AfD eagerly filled. Kurz managed to position his middle-of-the-road party farther to the right (and did it more quickly), appealing to many of the voters that the party had lost to the FPÖ in the past. That difference in right-leaning flexibility explains the ÖVP’s success in Austria (as well as that of Mark Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy [VVD] in the Netherlands back in mid-March) compared to the CDU’s poorer showing in Germany.
What will happen now?
The most probable outcome by far is a coalition of the Conservatives with the Freedom Party. However, a Social Democrat/Freedom Party coalition cannot be totally excluded. After all, Christian Kern, the current Social-Democratic leader, had broken the long-standing rule that his party would never form a coalition with the Freedom Party. On a regional level this had already been the case. If Kern actually enters a coalition with the FPÖ in order to stay in power, a split among the Social Democrats will be inevitable.
Another possibility that might dilute the impact of the Freedom Party in a possible coalition would be to include the pro-business Neos. This could apply to both options: a Social Democrat/Freedom Party coalition or the more likely Conservative/Freedom Party coalition. That would also reduce the dilemma that the Freedom Party faces: They lack enough qualified personnel capable of leading government agencies (already proven in 2000 in a similar coalition under Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel).
The new government, however it is composed, follows a coalition that has been unable to get much done. There is widespread support for action on long overdue reforms of Austria’s economic and social system, of its pension arrangements, its education system, and more. But there is no firm consensus on what the reforms should be. The new government therefore faces major tasks in its five-year tenure, and it will be judged by its results.
Whatever the outcome of the forthcoming coalition negotiations, no major change in Austria’s foreign policy or position with respect to the European Union is in store. Not even the Freedom Party wants to leave the Union; it only wishes to be free to scrutinize it, so it claims.
Austria will continue to abide by the moral and legal standards of the European Union. Kurz is also on record as showing zero tolerance for any form of anti-Semitism, and he appears to be utterly sincere in this. If the Freedom Party tests his meddle here too boldly, it could put an ÖVP-FPÖ coalition at risk. At the same time, Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen has committed himself to keeping a close eye on candidates for ministerial posts, and he has the constitutional power to refuse a candidate who does not espouse European values.
Sunday’s elections might well be a starting point for overdue reforms in Austria, and a higher Austrian profile within the European Union. If the government under Sebastian Kurz succeeds in calming communitarian concerns over immigration, he may set the high-water mark of Austria’s less benign political traditions. That would be all to the good.