Belinsky Andrey Victorovich – Ph.D. in Political Sciences, Senior Researcher, INION RAS
The article analyses 2024 electoral cycle in the Republic of Austria, which included land elections in Vorarlberg and Steiermark, followed by elections to the European Parliament and the National Council. It is noted that the coalition of the Austrian People’s Party (German: Österreichische Volkspartei, ÖVP) and the Greens (German: Die Grünen), formed through the efforts of S. Kurz at the beginning of 2020, despite the fact that it allowed the conservatives to retain power and the environmentalists to finally ascend to the political Olympus, turned out to be unviable in the medium term. The reasons for both parties’ refusal to continue the alliance were ultimately due to their different visions of ways to solve such problems as economic revival, the fight against inflation and, of course, the regulation of migration flows. Serious changes have also taken place in the rather heterogeneous opposition camp. Having recovered from the shock caused by the political scandal (the so-called «Ibiza-gate») involving the Vice-Chancellor of Austria, the leader of the Austrian Freedom Party (German: Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ) H.-K. Strache and his resignation, the FPÖ under the leadership of the new leader G. Kickl began to rapidly gain points, as was clearly demonstrated by both sociological surveys and the results of land elections. The Social Democratic Party of Austria (German: Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs, SPÖ), on the other hand, unlike the Austrian far right, failed to learn from its previous defeats and, despite a change in leadership, was sinking ever deeper into the quagmire of destructive intra-party struggle. The elections to the European Parliament ended with a victory for the FPÖ, which managed to take first place, although it received slightly fewer votes than expected. In the months leading up to the parliamentary elections that followed, the centrist parties failed to reverse the trend, and Austria’s radical right-wing populists became the country’s strongest political force for the first time in their history, with 29% of the vote. At the same time, the absence of an absolute minority in the National Council for the FPÖ, as well as the reluctance of other parties to become junior partners of the far right, seriously complicates the formation of a government coalition. The conclusion is made about the influence of the elections in Austria on the political situation in Central and Eastern Europe.
Austria, elections to the European Parliament, elections to the National Council, FPÖ, ÖVP, SPÖ, right-wing radical populism
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