On 27 April, municipal and district council elections were held in Vienna.
As expected, the SPÖ is clearly the strongest force in the municipal council. It lost a little but gains nearly 40% of the vote, and has more votes than the second and third-placed parties combined. The red hegemony in the Austrian capital remains unbroken, and Mayor Michael Ludwig remains in office. The election campaign was unspectacular, with the SPÖ’s slogan being ‘It’s about Vienna.’ The right wing parties failed to spark a broad debate on migration and security.
The far-right FPÖ tripled its result though. After slumping in the elections five years ago, it has regained some of its former strength with just over 20%, but is still far from the 31% it achieved in 2015. It mainly took votes from the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP), whose result is now in single digits at 9.7%. This shows the weakness of the chancellor’s party, known as a rural party, in the cities. The Greens became the third strongest party, with just over 14% of the vote, almost the same as in the last election. The neoliberal NEOS party, the SPÖ’s coalition partner in Vienna in the last legislative period, gained 2.5% and, with 9.8%, achieved its best result in a Vienna election since its founding in 2012 and even outperformed the conservatives. NEOS, the Greens and the ÖVP are all potential coalition partners – Ludwig had already stated before the election that he would not form a coalition with the FPÖ. A continuation of the SPÖ coalition with NEOS is likely. The federal government also features a three-party coalition between NEOS and SPÖ for the first time – but as smaller partners to the ÖVP.
The KPÖ ran again together with the LINKS party and almost doubled its result with just under 4%, but failed to enter the municipal council (threshold is 5%).
At district level, the number of KPÖ – LINKS district councillors has more than doubled to 48. There are more than 1,000 district councillors in Vienna, so 48 does not seem like much, but the KPÖ and LINKS are now represented in all districts of Vienna and have already shown in the past that a lot can be achieved at this local level – especially in terms of urban planning and social and cultural policy resolutions. In addition, both parties have a practice of paying the district council salary of around EUR 500 (three times as much for chairpersons of a ‘club’ – from 2 mandates on), which is paid fourteen times a year, as a party tax. In some districts, the money is paid into a social fund based on the Graz model so that voters in need can be given financial assistance.
In the poorest district, the 15th municipal district, KPÖ – LINKS is stronger than the ÖVP with 8.7% and also has one more district councillor (four in total). In general, it can be observed that KPÖ – LINKS is strong where the Greens are strong, in the gentrified inner districts and the partly gentrified historic working-class districts in the outer city. Most new voters came from the Greens.
Voter turnout fell to just under 63%. A third of Viennese people of voting age are not allowed to vote because they do not have Austrian citizenship. At district level, EU citizens were also eligible to vote.

Barbara Steiner