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In Sunday’s Vienna elections, there was also a vote on the kingship in all 23 districts. In terms of supremacy, everything remains largely the same here. In up to three districts, a different party will set the tone than before. The SPÖ recovered Leopoldstadt from the Greens and Simmering from the FPÖ. Thanks to postal voters, the Greens, in turn, should be able to refer Josefstadt from the ÖVP.
The fact that the Reds will not have 15 but 17 district chiefs over the next five years, as was the case last, is already clear from the final result of the preliminary polls. Here the votes by mail – they have only been counted from today, Monday, tomorrow – cannot change anything. This also applies to the two recovered districts of Leopoldstadt and Simmering, where the advantage over the runner-up of more than ten percentage points cannot be achieved.
Paul Stadler has to go
In the second district, SORA-ORF extrapolation at the district level predicts 37.7 percent for the SPÖ and 27.2 percent for the Greens. With this, Alexander Nikolai, currently the red head of the district party, replaces the green head Uschi Lichtenegger in the chair. In Simmering, on the other hand, the interregnum of the FPÖ ends, Paul Stadler, who in 2015 was able to paint the old working-class district blue, as the first Viennese district in history. According to the extrapolation, the Reds will cross the finish line with 42.2 percent and thus severely outperform the FPÖ (27.3 percent).
The third district, which will be illuminated in a different color in the future, is likely to be Josefstadt. So the two strongest parties, the ÖVP and the Greens, are currently head to head. The preliminary final result even shows turquoise district president Veronika Mickel as the narrow winner, at 30.2 to 29.5 percent, which is a difference of exactly 37 votes. Thanks to postal voters, the Greens should still catch up on this small deficit.
Stenzel is not a “secret weapon”
The SORA-ORF forecast has calculated a final score of 31.1 percent for the Greens compared to 30.1 percent for the ÖVP. With that, the reconquest of a district that was already ecological between 2005 and 2010 would be achieved and the main candidate Martin Fabisch would be Mickel’s successor in the direction of the district.
If Josefstadt is lost, the ÖVP would only provide three instead of four district heads in the future. He was able to expand his superior position in the fortresses of Hietzing and Döbling. And even in the city center incumbent Markus Figl outperformed the competition despite or due to controversy over the city with calm traffic and, based on extrapolation, was able to increase by 13.4 points and consequently walk away with 39.1 percent. Side detail: The FPÖ tried to score points with controversial former director Ursula Stenzel as a “secret weapon”, then on a ÖVP ballot, which did not impress voters. The blues will only hit about five and a half percent despite the famous nominee.
The Greens hold, assuming victory in the eighth district, still with three district chiefs. In addition to the now traditional bastion of new buildings, where the forecast of 41.2 percent could even increase slightly compared to 2015, the domain at Währing, which was first conquered only five years ago, was defended or expanded, from the 28.1 to 35.2 percent. The Greens clearly failed in their optimistic inner belt districts of Wieden, Margareten, Mariahilf and Alsergrund, where the gap to the SPÖ is several percentage points each.
SPÖ victory thanks to FPÖ
The SPÖ will provide the address for the remaining 17 districts. It is remarkable that the Reds were able to make up a lot of ground due to the Freedom Party crash landing throughout Vienna, especially in those areas where the FPÖ was dangerously close to first place. In addition to recapturing Simmering, they also drove in Floridsdorf, where postal voters had barely avoided a FPÖ victory in 2015, this time a huge victory with an extrapolation of 45.3 percent. On the battlefield favorites also red-blue, the SPÖ even scored 48.3 percent. The FPÖ fell to 10.2 and 10.8 percent in these two districts.
