A tale of firsts: the 2019 Austrian snap election

Author(s)
Jakob-Moritz Eberl, Lena Maria Huber, Carolina Plescia
Abstract

The 2019 Austrian snap election, held on 29 September 2019, was preceded by a series of scandals. Most prominent among them was the so-called ‘Ibizagate’ involving the former Vice-Chancellor and FPÖ party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache. The scandal eventually led to the collapse of the ÖVP-FPÖ coalition in May 2019 and the formation of a caretaker government. The election day in September brought a clear victory for the ÖVP with an increase of almost six percentage points, compared to its vote share in the 2017 election. The second big winner was the Green party which scored the best result in the party history with 13.9 per cent of the vote. Amid scandals, the FPÖ saw its support fall to only 16.2 per cent; the election also resulted in an all-time low for the SPÖ achieving only 21.2 per cent. The article presents the background, the election campaign and the results of the 2019 Austrian election, discussing the wide range of ‘firsts’ that characterized them, including the formation of the first ÖVP-Green coalition government in Austria.

Organisation(s)
Department of Government, Department of Communication
Journal
West European Politics
Volume
43
Pages
1350-1363
No. of pages
14
ISSN
0140-2382
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2020.1717836
Publication date
09-2020
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
506014 Comparative politics
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Political Science and International Relations
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/a-tale-of-firsts-the-2019-austrian-snap-election(9448aad3-2c53-448b-8320-aa5df2680f1d).html