restless.

the austrian elections

elections for the national council were held yesterday, 1 october 2006, in austria. the elections were held for the parliament, the legislative power of the republic of austria.

some background.
austria elects on national level a head of state (the president) and a legislature. the president, currently heinz fischer, is elected for a six year term by the people - www.hofburg.at.
the parliament (in german = "parlament") has two chambers: the national council (german = "nationalrat") has 183 members, elected for a four year term by proportional representation. the politically less significant federal council (german = "bundesrat") has 64 members, elected from five to six year by the provincial parliaments.

the 2006 legislative election.
Austria's Social Democrats scored a narrow upset victory over the ruling conservatives in a national election on Sunday that also brought a surge of rightist parties demanding a crackdown on immigrants.

The outcome suggested Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's campaign emphasis on staying a course of business-friendly tax cuts and playing up his image as a safe pair of hands stumbled on discontent over widening income gaps and Muslim immigration.

"People in Austria believe that we are a rich and wealthy country, but not everything is distributed evenly," Social Democrat leader Alfred Gusenbauer said on Austrian state TV ORF. "And therefore people want a correction."

The Social Democrats gained 35.7 percent according to preliminary results, almost 1 percent behind their finish in the last elections in 2002. But Schuessel's People's Party fell to 34.2 percent from 42.3 percent four years ago.

Gusenbauer is expected to be asked by President Heinz Fischer to form the next government and will probably seek a "grand coalition" with Schuessel's conservatives.
A grand coalition, the combination which ruled Austria for 34 of 61 years after World War Two, would likely mark the end of Schuessel's career in domestic politics, said Anton Pelinka, professor for political science.

The People's Party, for which Schuessel had won back the chancellorship through a controversial coalition with Haider in 2000, lost voters to all major parties, and many of them did not bother to vote at all.
(extract from www.cnn.com)

posted by simone @ 18:20