Legislative elections were held in Austria on 29 September 2024 to elect the 28th National Council, the lower house of Austria's bicameral parliament.
The election saw the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) place first, winning 28.8% of the vote and achieving its best result in the party's history. This was the first time that a far-right party won the most seats in a legislative election in Austria after World War II. The governing Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) lost 20 seats, while its coalition partner, the Greens, lost 10 seats. The centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) won just 21.1%, marking its worst result ever in terms of percentages and the place occupied (3rd), but it gained one seat compared to the previous election. NEOS slightly improved from 2019, rising from 15 to 18 seats. No other party was able to clear the 4% threshold to win seats.
Background.
The 2019 legislative election was called after the Ibiza affair, which triggered the collapse of the coalition government between the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) led by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. The coalition was ousted in a motion of no confidence and replaced by a non-partisan interim government. The election delivered a strong victory for the ÖVP, which rose to 37.5%, while the FPÖ declined to 16%, its worst result since 2008. With 21%, the opposition Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) recorded its worst performance in over a century. The Greens returned to the National Council after failing to win seats in 2017, achieving its best-ever result with 14%. NEOS improved to 8%.
The ÖVP formed a coalition with The Greens, a first on the federal level in Austria. The new government took office in January 2020, with Sebastian Kurz returning as Chancellor.
Norbert Hofer announced his resignation as leader of the Freedom Party in June 2021. He was replaced by parliamentary group leader Herbert Kickl, whose dismissal as interior minister caused the collapse of the ÖVP–FPÖ government in 2019.
On 6 October 2021 agents of the Central Prosecutorial Agency for Corruption and Economic Affairs (WKStA) raided the Federal Chancellery and the headquarters of the ÖVP as part of a corruption probe targeting Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and his "inner circle". Prosecutors alleged that, in 2016, Kurz paid bribes to news outlets to publish coverage and opinion polling favourable to himself, the goal of the scheme being to undermine then-ÖVP leader Reinhold Mitterlehner so that Kurz could take his place. The Greens threatened to support a motion of no confidence if Kurz did not step down as Chancellor. He thus announced his resignation on 9 October and was replaced by Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg. However, he was quickly elected faction leader of the ÖVP in the National Council; it was widely understood that he would remain "de facto" leader of the government.
On 2 December, Kurz announced he would resign from all offices and retire from politics, citing a desire to focus on his family after becoming a father. Shortly after, Schallenberg announced he would resign as Chancellor in favour of the new ÖVP leader once one had been elected. On 3 December, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer was unanimously appointed as leader of the ÖVP by the federal party committee and proposed as Chancellor. He was sworn in by President Alexander Van der Bellen on 6 December.
Since 2019 numerous new and old minor parties such as Team HC Strache – Alliance for Austria, MFG Austria – People Freedom Fundamental Rights, The Beer Party and the Communist Party of Austria received at times considerable support in the 2020 Viennese state election, 2021 Upper Austrian state election, 2022 Austrian presidential election, 2023 Salzburg state election and various local elections, allowing these parties to win seats.
During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ÖVP-Green government enjoyed high support. The government then became deeply unpopular after it passed a mandatory vaccination law, which led to a strong polarization of the population. As a result, and because of large-scale public protests, the mandatory vaccination law (one of few in the world) was later dropped and was never enforced.
After a series of corruption scandals involving the ÖVP and rising inflation – such as skyrocketing housing, electricity, fuel and grocery prices – the government parties lost considerable support in 4 subsequent state elections in Tyrol, Lower Austria, Carinthia and Salzburg. As of May 2023, inflation in Austria was still around 10% and continues to be much higher than the Eurozone average, at around 7%.
Under Nehammer's leadership, Austria's government implemented a package of measures worth six billion euros ($6.3 billion) in 2022 aimed at cushioning the blow to households of the rising cost of living. The measures helped limit poverty, but according to experts increased inflation further.
On 8 December 2022, Nehammer was the architect of blocking Romania and Bulgaria's access into the Schengen Area. Nehammer said he first wants the EU to introduce strict border controls at the EU's outer border to limit illegal immigration before the two countries should be allowed to join Schengen.
On 3 June 2023, after years of internal conflicts, intrigues and crossfire, the opposition SPÖ elected a new party leader. The non-binding party membership vote ahead of the binding party congress was won by Hans Peter Doskozil, although by a simple plurality of votes, leaving the door open for a challenge by second-place finisher Andreas Babler at the party congress. On 23 May 2023, incumbent party leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner announced that she would not be a candidate at the party congress, after coming in just third in the membership vote and announced her orderly resignation. On 25 May 2023, Rendi-Wagner announced her complete withdrawal from Austrian politics by the end of June, also resigning as a member of the Austrian Parliament. On 3 June 2023, Hans Peter Doskozil was elected as the new party chairman with 53% of the delegates. However, two days later the SPÖ announced that the results had been mixed up in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and that Babler was the actual winner with 53%, thus becoming the new party chairman.
The weakness of both the government parties and the SPÖ has allowed the far-right, populist opposition party FPÖ to top the polls during 2023, positioning it to win an Austrian legislative election for the first time, even though it has previously been involved in the Ibiza affair scandal which caused the 2019 governing coalition to resign.
According to polls conducted in May 2023, at that time a government led by the FPÖ and with political hardliner Herbert Kickl as Chancellor was opposed at that time by about two in three Austrians. Additionally, President Alexander Van der Bellen has said that he might not swear in a FPÖ-led government with Kickl as Chancellor, but that he remains open to swearing in a more moderate FPÖ Chancellor.
The rise in inflation and in particular the increasingly unaffordable cost of housing saw the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) rise considerably in opinion polls conducted before the legislative election. Previously a non-factor in Austria-wide elections, the party rose to as high as 7 percent after the Salzburg state election in April 2023, in which it received a record 12 percent of the vote, a result out of nowhere, which stunned political observers.
On 18 October 2023, former chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) was charged in federal court for allegedly making false statements to a parliamentary investigation committee.
On 4 November 2023, the KPÖ elected Tobias Schweiger as its lead candidate for the upcoming election.
On 11 November 2023, the new SPÖ leader Andreas Babler was confirmed at a party convention in Graz by 89 percent of voting delegates.
On 18 January 2024, Dominik Wlazny (alias Marco Pogo) announced the candidacy of the Beer Party (BIER).
Date.
The election had to be held before the conclusion of the five-year term of the 27th National Council on 23 October 2024 (typically, regularly-scheduled elections are held several weeks earlier than that, to allow for the publication of an official certified election result). Elections are traditionally not held during the school summer holidays, from early July to mid-September.
Due to the government's unpopularity, it was often speculated in the media that early elections would be called for the spring of 2024, but the ÖVP-Green government repeatedly said it wanted to finish its term and that the election would be held in September 2024.
In February 2024, Minister of Agriculture Norbert Totschnig (ÖVP) mentioned that the election would likely be held on Sunday 29 September 2024, exactly five years after the previous election.
On 28 June 2024, the federal government formally announced the election date of 29 September 2024. Polling stations opened at 07:00 and closed at 17:00.
Electoral system.
The 183 members of the National Council are elected by open list proportional representation at three levels; a single national constituency, nine constituencies based on the federal states, and 39 regional constituencies. Seats are apportioned to the regional constituencies based on the results of the most recent census. For parties to receive any representation in the National Council, they must either win at least one seat in a constituency directly, or clear a 4 percent national electoral threshold.
Following the elections, seats are allocated to the candidates of successful parties and lists in a three-stage process, starting with the regional constituencies. Seats are distributed according to the Hare quota in the regional constituencies, and with unallocated seats distributed at the state constituency level. Any remaining seats are then allocated using the D'Hondt method at the federal level, to ensure overall proportionality between a party's national vote share and its share of parliamentary seats.
In addition to voting for a political party, voters may cast three preferential votes for specific candidates of that party, but are not required to do so. These additional votes do not affect the proportional allocation based on the vote for the party or list, but can change the rank order of candidates on a party's lists at the federal, state, and regional level. The threshold to increase the position of a candidate on a federal party list is 7 percent, compared to 10 percent at the state level, and 14 percent at the regional level. The names of candidates on regional party lists are printed on the ballot and can be marked with an "x" to indicate the voter's preference. Preference votes for candidates on party lists at the state and federal level, however, must be written in by the voter, either by writing the name or the rank number of the candidate in a blank spot provided for that purpose.
Voting law reform.
The ÖVP–Green government decided in early 2023 to reform the voting law. Among the reforms were the introduction of an early voting period, beginning three weeks before election day, during which voters can request absentee ballots in every municipality. Voters can either fill out the ballot in the municipality and therefore cast the ballot early, or take the absentee ballot with them and cast it later by mail, or in-person before or on election day. Previously, this was only possible in large cities. Another reform will be the counting of almost all absentee and mail-ballots on election day. Previously, most mail ballots were counted on the Monday and Thursday after election day. The new changes would lead to most votes being counted on election day, while only a much smaller number of late-arriving mail ballots and mail ballots from electoral districts other than the voters' own district will be counted on the Monday after election day. The 2024 European Parliament election in Austria was the first national election in which the new law took effect, and it showed that only about 130,000 absentee ballots had to be counted on the Monday after election day, compared to almost 960,000 on the Monday after the 2019 legislative election. Other reforms include measures to lower the number of invalid or spoilt votes among absentee/mail ballots, by re-designing mail ballot instructions and introduction of "easy language" (or plain language) on them. High fines and a prison sentence of up to two weeks will be introduced for election commission members who deliberately leak election results of their polling stations to the media or other third parties before poll closing time. The reform of the voting law, which took effect on 1 January 2024, was also supported by the three opposition parties SPÖ, FPÖ and NEOS, after several