|
Austria The Parliamentary Election of 1990
The ÖVP and SPÖ approached the parliamentary election of 1990
with trepidation. In 1989 the political landscape had been shaken
by Haider's FPÖ, which had racked up impressive gains in
provincial elections in Carinthia, Salzburg, and Tirol. Even
though questions had been raised about Haider's honesty, he
continued to entice voters to leave the major parties. The FPÖ
scored a spectacular success in Carinthia, where it displaced the
ÖVP as the second largest party, and it caused the ÖVP to lose
its absolute majority in Salzburg.
In the October 1990 national election, the FPÖ again
shocked the political establishment by increasing its share of
the vote from 9.7 to 16.6 percent. This gain came almost
completely at the expense of the ÖVP, whose share of the vote
declined from 41.3 to 32.1 percent. The SPÖ's share of the vote
remained essentially the same, which surprised everyone. The
party, realizing that its strong suit was the popularity of
Vranitzky, employed a new electoral strategy that probably
explains its ability to avoid the ÖVP's fate. With Vranitzky as
the top candidate in all nine electoral districts, the SPÖ urged
voters to cast preference votes for Vranitzky, which could be
done without selecting the SPÖ box on the ballot (these votes
would count toward the SPÖ's total number of seats in the
Nationalrat, however). A nonpartisan committee was organized to
carry out this campaign, and it succeeded in attracting support
from sources that otherwise might not have voted for the SPÖ in
the regular manner. Because of disagreements between the two
Green parties, they did not run on a united ticket as they had in
1986. The Green Alternative/Greens in Parliament (Grüne
Alternative/Grüne in Parliament--GAL), formerly known as the
Alternative List of Austria, received 4.5 percent and increased
its seats in the parliament from eight to ten. The United Greens
of Austria (Vereinigte Grüne Österreichs--VGÖ) received only 1.9
percent and won no seats.
Given the antipathy that Vranitzky felt for Haider, there was
no chance of a revival of an SPÖ-FPÖ coalition. After a period of
negotiations, the SPÖ and ÖVP agreed to continue the grand
coalition. Because economic conditions were much improved in
comparison with 1986, the new coalition planned to focus on
issues such as social welfare, health care, science, and
research. Attention would also be given to reforming the
country's electoral system and its chambers of commerce and
labor. Increasing numbers of Austrians regarded the former as
unrepresentative and resented the latter's requirement of
compulsory membership. The coalition partners decided to upgrade
the position of state secretary for women's affairs to full
cabinet rank, and the new Ministry for Women's Affairs was
created to oversee these matters.
Data as of December 1993
|
