31026

[schneefink]

The Austrian presidential election was decided by 31.026 votes, 50,3% - 49,7%. Over 72% voter participation. The most important thing: the right-wing candidate lost. Though it's way too close for comfort; I've seen some international headlines "Austria rejects right-wing candidate" and you can't say that after he got almost 50% of the votes. (3,6% of the votes were invalid, more than enough to potentially decide the election.)

Just to clarify, the most important election in Austria is the election of the national parliament, which determines the government and the chancellor. The president has traditionally had a mostly ceremonial role. However, he does have some important powers and the right-wing candidate said "people will be surprised what is possible." Ugh. It's suspected that he planned to fire the current government to get a new election sooner, which would favor his right-wing party.

Some context: there were five candidates for this presidential election, four from the bigger parties and one independent. Austria used to have two big parties for decades, the conservative ÖVP and the socialist SPÖ, but they lost a lot of popularity due to several different factors. The biggest opposition parties are the left-wing Green party and the right-wing FPÖ.
We had a run-off election between the Green party candidate (Van der Bellen) and the FPÖ candidate (Hofer.) The election was on Sunday, but it was so close that the final result wasn't known until about 1-2 hours ago. (Did it have to take so long to count all the votes? Seriously, Innsbruck? The Pens lost yesterday so not even that was a good distraction.)
A very accurate quote from I-don't-know-who/multiple sources: "100% of Austrians think 50% of Austrians are idiots."

The majority of women, people living in cities, and people with high school degrees voted for VdB, by the way. The majority of men, people in rural areas, and the overwhelming majority of workers voted Hofer. Nobody tell me again that not every single vote counts. Oh and right-wing voters already have their conspiracy theories: this is proof that people are brainwashed at Austrian universities, clearly, and also that the votes were manipulated etc. etc.

I'm SO RELIEVED. It was so close, and the prospect of having a right-wing president was scary. As it is I'm already nervous about the next parliament elections. Hopefully this close outcome will lead to positive reforms in the center parties. DO NOT WANT right-wing chancellor H.C.Strache *shudders*

Comments

[dolorosa_12]

I'm very relieved - that was a scary situation.

The closeness of the vote demonstrates the importance of voting, doesn't it? It was such a small difference, only 30,000 votes or something like that, which meant that every vote truly counted.

[schneefink]

31.026 votes. Yes exactly, I really hope that this will mean a high voter participation for the next elections. (Though there were also right-wing voters who after the elections said it was all rigged so next time they wouldn't bother voting, which tbh I wouldn't be that sad about.)

[dolorosa_12]

Well, I'm Australian, so I generally think that compulsory voting* is the best system, although it frequently leads to more centrist governments than I'd prefer. But at least it leads to governments that are as close to what the majority wanted as possible. Obviously I wouldn't weep tears of despair if a bunch of right-wingers decided to stay home in a fit of pique, but I feel very strongly about compulsory voting, and, if voting is not compulsory, that as many people should be encouraged to vote as possible, even if they hold views opposed to my own.

*Technically it's not compulsory to vote, as no one can see what you've done to your ballot paper, but it is compulsory to show up at the polling station, take a ballot paper, and put that paper in the ballot box (or vote by post). You could of course spoil the ballot or return it blank to the box and there'd be no way of knowing.

[schneefink]

I'm not completely sure about compulsory voting - tentatively I'm for it, but I haven't thought it through yet - but I think declining voter participation is a bad sign. During the last election before this one for the first time (that I can remember) there were advertisements not for one particular party, but just to go vote in general, and I liked that a lot. It helped too, or at least more people went than in previous years.