by Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik
Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik is Professor of Austrian Politics in its European Context at the University of Vienna.
The far-right FPÖ has won the 2024 general election in Austria but is highly likely to remain locked out of government. With all other parties having ruled out working with the current FPÖ leader, the most likely outcome of the government formation talks is a three-party government – the first to be formed since 1945 – led by the incumbent chancellor Karl Nehammer.
The Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) won a historic victory in September’s elections for the Lower House of the Austrian Parliament. For the first time in the country’s history, the party topped the polls with 29% of the vote, followed by the Christian Democrats of the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) on 26% and the Social Democrats on 21%. Two smaller parties, the liberal Neos (9%) and the Greens (8%), will also be represented in the new parliament.
The elections marked the end of a five-year legislative period during which Austria was deeply affected by several crises: The Covid-19 pandemic caused tens of thousands of deaths, billions in economic damage and massive disruption to social and public life. The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to massive refugee flows into Austria and dramatic increases in energy prices, followed by record inflation. Finally, in late 2021, the ÖVP leadership faced serious allegations of corruption, leading to the resignation of then-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
All these crises contributed to the dramatic losses suffered by the ruling parties, the ÖVP and the Greens, in September. The ÖVP lost a whopping eleven percentage points, while the Greens saw their share of the vote fall by six. The biggest gains were made by the FPÖ, which rose from 16 to 29 points. All other gains and losses were relatively small.
The performance of the parties differed dramatically between urban and rural areas: The ÖVP’s losses and the FPÖ’s gains were much more pronounced in rural districts than in densely populated areas.
The Greens, on the other hand, lost most in urban areas.
At the individual level, FPÖ support was most strongly correlated with familiar factors such as anti-immigration attitudes and skepticism towards the EU, but also with newer traits such as vaccine hesitancy and opposition to climate policies.
Through the multiple crises that have engulfed the country over the past five years, the FPÖ has carefully staked out a position of opposition not only to immigration and globalization, but also to measures to combat the pandemic, green policies and European sanctions against Russia.
While most of these positions do not command majority support, they helped the FPÖ secure the support of a significant minority of the electorate – enough to make it the largest party in the new parliament.
After the election, FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl renewed his claim to lead the next government.
However, all other parties had ruled out cooperation with the FPÖ (SPÖ, Greens, Neos) or its leader (ÖVP) before the election. This led the president to deviate from the long-standing tradition of asking the leader of the largest party in parliament to form a government.
At the end of October, the president gave the task to the leader of the ÖVP, incumbent Chancellor Karl Nehammer. While the ÖVP has much greater policy overlap with the FPÖ than other parties, the party has long expressed fundamental reservations about the latter’s leader and ruled out a coalition with Herbert Kickl – who nonetheless saw no reason to back down from his claim to lead the next government.
The most likely outcome is therefore an ideologically uneasy coalition of ÖVP, SPÖ and Neos – the first three-way coalition since the all-party cabinet of 1945. Given the parties’ very different platforms, the negotiations ahead are likely to prove difficult and lengthy.
The most contentious areas are the core areas of economic policy, taxation and social affairs. ÖVP will insist on tax cuts and business-friendly measures to rejuvenate Austria’s manufacturing sector, while SPÖ favors wealth and inheritance taxes to finance more generous benefits and services for children and the elderly. Neos, on the other hand, want a fundamental reform of the pension system and significant changes to the education system, which is struggling to cope with the large influx of migrants in recent years. All these demands will have to be negotiated while bringing the burgeoning budget deficit back into line with the Maastricht criteria.
It seems unlikely that a coalition of these three parties will outline a strong and coherent reform agenda in the many policy areas where this would be required. However, the need for fiscal consolidation and political pressure from the FPÖ’s success may force the potential government parties to overcome their disagreements in favor of a government program that will be more than a minimal compromise.
