Austria’s centrist coalition scrapes combined majority

Austria’s pro-Europe, centrist coalition appear to have won enough votes to form a new government, staving off a strong challenge from the Eurosceptic right wing, initial projections indicated yesterday.

Chancellor Werner Faymann’s Social Democrats (SPO) – who had campaigned on a platform of defending jobs and pensions and redistributing wealth – were poised to get 26.7 per cent of the parliamentary vote, according to ARGE Wahlen projections reported by the Austria Press Agency.

The conservative People’s Party (OVP) was set to get 23.6 per cent, giving the two parties that have dominated post-war Austrian politics a combined – albeit reduced – majority for a five-year term in the 183-seat lower house. The results, if confirmed, will be the worst since the second World War for the two main parties. In the 1980s, they were scoring a combined 90 per cent.

The anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPO), which seeks to end taxpayer-funded bailouts of struggling euro zone countries, boosted its share of the vote to 21.9 per cent, according to projections, which were based on a count of around 35 per cent of votes.

The Greens, who had been likely to join the existing coalition parties in government had they failed to secure a majority by themselves, were set to win 12 per cent of the vote, below the 14 per cent predicted by the most recent opinion polls.

More than 10 per cent of the nearly 6.4 million eligible voters cast their ballots without going to polling stations, and their votes are due to be tallied today.

The governing parties were counting on their record in piloting the country through the global financial crisis relatively unscathed to win another five-year term.

Heinz-Christian Strache’s FPO improved on the 17.5 per cent it got in 2008 but could not overtake the OVP due to competition from Frank Stronach’s new party, also Eurosceptic but without the anti-foreigner tone. – (Reuters)