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In the end, it was even more fatal than expected. The FPÖ predicted a drop from 31 to 10 percent of the votes for the Vienna elections; 7.7 percent were, according to extrapolation from Sunday night. With an expected fluctuation range of 2 percent, even in the best of cases, this doesn’t even mean a double digit result.
For Dominik Nepp, this makes political life a bit difficult. Because such a poor performance will raise the question of his suitability for the blue top position, even considering the difficult circumstances that accompany him. Therefore, it is important for Nepp to separate the man who is causally related to these accompanying circumstances: Heinz-Christian Strache. Not only did the FPÖ enter into crisis with the publication of Strache’s scandalous video in Ibiza, but the former vice chancellor of his former party made his life even more difficult when his newly formed team participated in the elections.
Nepp should receive a bonus as a dragon slayer
Nepp and Strache fought each other for the blue central electorate, for those people who have remained loyal to their party despite scandals and good competitive offers. Everything in the field of the extreme right that tended to moderate or voted in protest against the left and the establishment was largely eliminated by the ÖVP. Dominik Nepp should have won this duel, which would at least give him the bonus as a dragon slayer.
Based on Sunday’s extrapolation, it was extremely unlikely that Team HC would hit the 5 percent hurdle and thus make it to state parliament. More recently, 3.6 percent of the vote was forecast. “No, there is no hope anymore,” list co-founder Karl Baron said Sunday night.
Without entering the city parliament, Strache is as good as far from the window, because that means there is no public money for his parliamentary group. Even the slightest possibility that Strache will try to return through his wife Pia Philippa, who is still an unregistered member of the National Council, is unlikely. Because party support is only available in a club of five deputies. And campaigning on your own is more for millionaires or people with wealthy backers behind the scenes.
The FPÖ will feel it too. His accident is accompanied by serious financial losses. In 2019 Wiener Blauen received almost 9 million euros in match funding. By way of comparison: the ÖVP, which has had seven terms so far (the FPÖ anticipates eight for the next term), received just over 3 million euros.
Blue rebuild with less money in your pocket
If Strache’s failure is proven, the biggest losers next to him will be the Blues who, speculating on a move, defected to him. A return to the FPÖ, if it is accepted, becomes a Canossagang for them. In a first reaction, Nepp said about a possible reconciliation with Strache that this penance must precede, and that he has not yet been able to recognize it.
Now the real work of Dominik Nepp begins. The first thing to do is secure your position. He is backed by the head of the federal FPÖ, Norbert Hofer, who does not want to draw any personal conclusions from the debacle of his party in the Vienna elections. It is important that the party stick together now, Hofer said.
After that, you need to come up with a plan to return the FPÖ to second place, an undertaking that is difficult, if not impossible. On the one hand, the central electorate of the Blues is currently around 11 percent (FPÖ and Strache added). The 14 percent green seems to be within reach without any internal friction and at a distance from Ibiza and Strache, even if the 19 percent of the turquoise is very far away. On the other hand, from now on, every year a few million euros are missing from the bag and, therefore, also from the campaign box.
