Election in Lower Austria: ÖVP loses approval, FPÖ increases

In the election campaign, the FPÖ pushed the governing party ÖVP ahead of it – and is now the second strongest force in the state elections in Lower Austria. The ÖVP loses the absolute majority.

In the state elections in Lower Austria, the governing party was able to assert itself as the strongest force – albeit with a huge loss of votes of around ten percentage points. According to the projections, the conservative party slipped to 39.9 percent and thus lost the absolute majority in the state parliament and probably also in the government.

The right-wing FPÖ received 24.2 percent of the vote. This is her best result in Lower Austria to date. State party leader Udo Landbauer had repeatedly emphasized during the election campaign that the party was running to end the “ÖVP system”. Landbauer meant the decades-long dominance of the conservatives. He also blamed the ÖVP, led by Chancellor Karl Nehammer, for the fact that the number of asylum seekers in Austria had risen sharply in 2022.

“The FPÖ managed to turn this state election into a federal election,” said the Lower Austrian ÖVP leader and Prime Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner. The ÖVP, which was recently burdened by corruption investigations because of the so-called Ibiza scandal, achieved its worst result in Lower Austria since 1945. On the evening of the election, however, Mikl-Leitner ruled out resigning.

Global issues were important in the election

According to the projections, the social democratic SPÖ fell behind the FPÖ with 20.6 percent. The Greens received 7.6 percent of the vote, the liberal Neos 6.7 percent. According to surveys, the 1.3 million eligible voters were primarily concerned with national and global issues such as inflation, migration, the environment and climate.

“Corruption was voted out,” said FPÖ federal party manager Christian Hafenecker on the evening of the election. With a view to the state elections in Carinthia in March and in Salzburg in April, he added: “This is the beginning.” For weeks, the FPÖ has been in first place in nationwide surveys – ahead of the SPÖ and the ÖVP. The next federal election is not due until 2024.