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The number of mail-in votes that district electoral authorities had to count on Monday and Tuesday was greater than ever: Nearly 44 percent of the votes were cast by mail or at the district office before October 11. 317,091 valid votes were added to the ballot box result, and a lot was changed.
Turquoise dots on the red city map
So the map of the city, which was colored red on the Sunday after the elections, scored two turquoise points: in the city center and in Hietzing, the ÖVP is ultimately far ahead of the SPÖ.
Overall, the ÖVP and the Greens performed well with postal voters, which was also not what extrapolators expected. In the end, the ÖVP broke the 20 percent mark, at 20.43 percent, an increase of 11.19 percentage points. The number of its deputies has more than tripled, from seven to 22.
Party leader and finance minister Gernot Blümel was delighted with this on Wednesday. “It happened what we never dared to hope: in fact we achieved 20 percent in 2020,” he claimed via broadcast. That is a “clear mandate for more civil politics in Vienna.” The Rathaus-ÖVP “has not only returned, but we have achieved the best result in 33 years,” said Blümel.
Green is now the third strongest force in Vienna
The Greens finally came out with their best Viennese result each – 14.80 percent (+2.96) – and there are six more councilors (previously 10). You are now the third strongest force, instead of the collapsed FPÖ.
The SPÖ defended the undisputed first place and expanded it by 2.03 percentage points to 41.62 percent, as did the number of terms from 44 to 46. However, unlike previous years, it did significantly worse with postal voters, with Voters at the polls had 43.09 percent.
The election winners also include NEOS, which rose to 7.47 percent (+1.31) and its terms from five to eight. According to its own information, NEOS was able to secure a seat in the city senate, a city council. This is relevant to taking over a department in a possible red-rose coalition. NEOS country manager Philipp Kern also highlighted in a broadcast that the rosés would only accept the city senate seat “if we get to government.” NEOS had repeatedly emphasized that if worst came to worst, they wanted to resign from a non-executive city council.
Overall, Kern was extremely satisfied with the end result: “20 percent increase in vote share, 60 percent increase in terms of office, first NEOS and NEOS Federal Council before FPÖ – we couldn’t be more satisfied” .
FPÖ and Strache shakes
This time, the losers in the elections were in the “third field”, which was still so successful in 2015: the FPÖ collapsed from a record 30.79 percent to just 7.11 percent as a result of Ibiza and the issue of expenses. 26 of his 34 leaders so far have to say goodbye, and also from the position of vice mayor.
Former FPÖ boss Heinz-Christian Strache failed: his new party, the HC Strache list, remained well below the five percent hurdle at 3.27 percent. Both the FPÖ and the HC performed well below average among postal voters, their overall results being significantly worse than the ballot box results announced Sunday.
Of course, voter turnout increased with postal voters, to 65.27 percent. Of course, that still means a sharp 9.48 percentage point drop. This was due, on the one hand, to the crown pandemic and, on the other, to the fact that many former FPÖ voters stayed away from the polls.
Not only has the official final result of the 2020 Vienna elections been determined, but also which lead candidate received the most preferential votes. The incumbent mayor and leading candidate of the SPÖ, Michael Ludwig, was by far the most popular. It obtained 15,049 mentions in the municipal council election (“Stadtwahlvorschlag”). Wiener Türkisen’s boss, Finance Minister Gernot Blümel, was appointed 11,336 times. Green leader Birgit Hebein received 7,076 statements of support, NEOS chief Christoph Wiederkehr reached 3,110.
In the comparison between FPÖ boss Dominik Nepp and his predecessor Heinz-Christian Strache, Nepp made the race. According to the Stadt-Wien website wien.gv.at, Nepp received 3,790 preferential votes, followed by Strache with 2,687 mentions.
(Those: APA)
