Parliamentary Elections, 29 September 2024

Austria held elections on 29 September 2024 for the National Council, the lower house of parliament. 183 seats are proportionally elected on a five-year term, as well as the Austrian chancellor who is nominated by the President after the elections (Parliament Austria n.d.). The main responsible authority for the elections is the Bundeswahlbehörde (Federal Electoral Board), which comprises the Federal Minister of Interior and 17 commissioners (Bundesministerium n.d.).

Legal changes introduced in 2022 and 2023 increased participation through improved access for voters with disabilities, and increased legitimacy by publishing precinct-level results and improving the counting and administration of postal ballots. Postal ballots are counted in the polling stations after the polls have closed, as per regular ballots. Online tracking was further available for those who used postal voting (OSCE 2024).

The OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights conducted a needs assessments before the elections, in which report observers expressed confidence in the Austrian electoral process. However, concerns were raised regarding negative rhetoric and disinformation on social media platforms, as well as the risk of foreign interference after an espionage scandal earlier in 2024 (OSCE 2024). In April, Austrian authorities learned that an officer within the intelligence services had been spying for Russia for some years (Chastand 2024).

Austria faced the worst flooding in decades during August and September 2024, with at least five people killed. In flood-affected Lower Austria and bigger cities including the capital, Vienna, live campaign events and televised debates were put on hold (Murphy 2024a).

During the campaign, the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) and its leader Herbert Kickl faced criticism for its Nazi origins in the 1950s and, in the present, for singing SS songs and calling for Kickl to be Volkskanzler, a term used by Adolf Hitler (Karnitschnig 2024). Rhetoric characterizing immigrants and Islam as alien to Austria, and normalizing violence towards women wearing hijabs, asylum seekers and people of colour has become more prevalent and created space for intimidation (Kassam 2024). 

Yet the FPÖ went on to win the election on 28.9 per cent of the vote and 57 parliamentary seats – a first for any far-right party in Austria since World War II (Kirby and Bell 2024). After polling stations closed, anti-Nazi protests formed outside the parliament (CNN/AP 2024) and these grew over the following week (VOA 2024).

The FPÖ was predicted to face difficulty in forming a government, initially facing refusal from other parties on opening coalition negotiations (U.S. News/Reuters 2024). President Van der Bellen had earlier taken a clear stance against Kickl, signalling a readiness to break with precedent and refuse to nominate him as chancellor (Murphy 2024b).

The turnout rate for the elections was 76.25 per cent, up by 0.66 per cent since the  75.59 per cent turnout recorded in 2019 (International IDEA n.d.). About 41 per cent of elected MPs were women, similar number to the 2019 elections (IPU n.d.).