2024 Austrian National Council election: Dissatisfaction or radicalisation?

A 450-square-meter mural on Hollandstrasse in Vienna reads, "Vote for something, vote against something, but vote for anything!" (in German: Wähl für was, Wähl gegen was, aber wähl was!). This is, above all, a call to participate in democracy by voting. Let us start with participation then: At 78 %, voter turnout in the 2024 Austrian National Council elections was slightly above the 75.6 % of 2019 but below the 80 % seen in 2017, and comparable to the turnout in 2006 and 2008, for example. However, it remains definitively lower than voter turnout in 2002 and earlier years. So, while positive for democracy and on average higher than in many other established democracies, it is not an exceptionally high turnout for Austria.

Voting "in favour" of something or "against" something

Let us move to voting for something (positive voting) versus voting against something (negative voting). Generally speaking, when interviewed, voters are somewhat reluctant to admit they voted against something. However, when specifically asked whether they voted to prevent another party from winning or whether they voted to punish a party for its government performance, more people will acknowledge this. We will have to wait a few more weeks for the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES) data to be more precise, but it seems that the FPÖ (Freedom Party of Austria) might have benefited the most from both positive and negative voting. Hence, the FPÖ was able to mobilise potential FPÖ voters who had abstained from voting in 2019 due to the Ibiza scandal and who now voted ‘for’ the party. But the FPÖ also drew from ÖVP (Austrian People's Party) voters who were dissatisfied by the party performance in government and now voted ‘against’ the ÖVP.

FPÖ victory "a sign of economic and socio-political dissatisfaction with the governing parties"

Many have emphasised the shift to the right among the Austrian electorate in this election: The far right won, the center-right came second and left-wing parties received a record-low number of votes. Many believe that the victory of the FPÖ reflects (or even leads) a general trend of radicalisation of the political discourse observed also in many other countries like in France, Germany, Italy and in the Netherlands, where extreme-right parties continue to do exceptionally well.

However, if we look at the gains and losses of the individual parties, we see that so-called "retrospective voting" (voting decisions based on the party's past performance) could explain the result:: The incumbent parties (those in government before the election) lost votes (-11.2 % for the ÖVP and -5.6 % for the Greens), while opposition parties performed well (+12.6 % for the FPÖ and +1.1 % for NEOS - The New Austria and Liberal Forum). The SPÖ (Social Democratic Party of Austria), also in opposition, was an exception to this, gaining almost exactly the same percentage of votes as in the previous election. The FPÖ primarily drew votes from dissatisfied ÖVP voters, while the SPÖ attracted former voters of the Greens. This is quite common: Voters punish incumbent parties by crossing within ideological blocks (so from the ÖVP to the FPÖ and from the Greens to the SPÖ) but not between them (for instance, a dissatisfied Greens voter would never vote for the FPÖ even when dissatisfied).

Like other opposition parties, the FPÖ benefited from being out of government during difficult times – we saw this during the refugee crisis in 2015, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and now following extreme inflation. Considering also that most FPÖ voters are not highly ideologically extreme and do not perceive the FPÖ as very extreme either (AUTNES data), the party’s victory at this election is less about an increasingly radical Austrian electorate and more about economic and socio-political dissatisfaction with the governing parties.

Challenges of government formation

Still, parties in Austria now face the challenge of forming a government, a task which will not be easy. In proportional systems, the winner of the election is not necessarily the party that comes in first but the one able to lead a government. In Austria, this will be difficult, as none of the parties want to govern with FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl, although the ÖVP leader, Nehammer, has indicated during the election campaign that he is open to an ÖVP-FPÖ coalition without Kickl. The question remains: Who will be the winner in terms of government formation? President Alexander Van der Bellen, on election night, made it clear that he wants a stable, democratic and EU-friendly government. While this seems incompatible with Herbert Kickl, it is not necessarily incompatible with an ÖVP-FPÖ coalition without Kickl or even without both Nehammer and Kickl. An ÖVP-SPÖ coalition is perhaps less conceivable but numerically possible especially with the external support from NEOS and/or the Greens, both of which have expressed willingness to cooperate. Anything else will prove unstable and would likely lead to a new election rather sooner than later.

Whatever the outcome of the government formation, and regardless of whether protests will take place in the upcoming days, ignoring the will of the people is dangerous: The FPÖ has won the election, and there is an undeniable dangerous further movement to the right in Austria which is not going to disappear any time soon, though in my view, the FPÖ victory is more about voters’ dissatisfaction than ideological radicalisation.