Polls open as Austria votes in snap election

Polls open as Austria votes in snap election

Polling has begun in Austria’s snap election on Sunday, with no party expected to win a majority.

The country’s coalition government collapsed after only 17 months in power following a secret video scandal and the loss of a vote of confidence for Europe’s youngest chancellor. It shows the head of the country’s far right Freedom Party and coalition partner, Heinz-Christian Strache, attempting to sell off state assets to a fake Russian oligarch.

Since June, the country has been led by a caretaker government.

Yet surprisingly, the “Ibiza gate” scandal is unlikely to have much effect on voters in Sunday’s election.

“I think what happened, Strache, Ibiza is not that important. It was just publicity for two weeks, but people, I think most of them forgot it already,” said Gerd Weizer, a Innsbruck resident.

Voters also appear to be overlooking the removal of the country’s chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, in a no confidence vote last May.

Support for his center-right/conservative Austrian People’s Party continues with polls showing them at roughly 34 percent.

“Mr Kurz, I hope that he remains as he was before and I will vote for him again without batting an eyelid… Let’s try it with the young ones,” said Ingeborg Bernhardt, another resident.

Innsbruck, in the Austrian canton of Tyrol nearly 500 kilometres from the capital Vienna has long been a conservative stronghold. But times could be changing as the issues driving voters to the polls change.

While the issue of migration lead the ballot boxes in 2017, today the environment tops the agenda, says senior researcher on political communication and electoral analysis at the university of Innsbruck, Lore Hayek.

“This time it is the climate crisis. That is pretty much the only issue that everybody is talking about. Apart from that, there are not really any policy issues on the table,” said Hayek.

And this is likely to play out well for Austria’s Green party, who lost their parliamentary seats in 2017, but are now polling around 12 percent.

More than six million people are eligible to vote. With no party likely to win a majority in Sunday’s election, there would likely be another coalition.

“There will definitely be a negotiation for a coalition, nobody will get an absolute majority. But the conservatives are so far ahead in the polls that for the first time ever we don’t have a fight for who is going to be the chancellor. It’s pretty clear that Sebastian Kurz will win this election,” said Hayek.

What is not so clear is if Austria’s far-right Freedom Party will overcome ‘Ibiza gate’ to make it back into a ruling coalition with Sebastian Kurz’s Austrian People’s Party after the ballots are cast this weekend.