2008 Lower Austrian state election

The 2008 Lower Austrian state election was held on 9 March 2008 to elect the members of the Landtag of Lower Austria.

The Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) retained its majority. The major opposition party, the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), suffered substantial losses. The Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) partially recovered from its 2003 losses, more than doubling its voteshare and tripling its number of seats.

Background The Lower Austrian constitution mandates that cabinet positions in the state government (state councillors, ) be allocated between parties proportionally in accordance with the share of votes won by each; this is known as Proporz. As such, the government is a perpetual coalition of all parties that qualify for at least one state councillor. After the 2003 election, the ÖVP had six councillors and the SPÖ three.

Electoral system The 56 seats of the Landtag of Lower Austria are elected via open list proportional representation in a two-step process. The seats are distributed between twenty-one multi-member constituencies. For parties to receive any representation in the Landtag, they must either win at least one seat in a constituency directly, or clear a 4 percent state-wide electoral threshold. Seats are distributed in constituencies according to the Hare quota, with any remaining seats allocated using the D'Hondt method at the state level, to ensure overall proportionality between a party's vote share and its share of seats.

Contesting parties The table below lists parties represented in the previous Landtag. Name Ideology Leader 2003 result Votes (%) Seats Councillors ÖVP Austrian People's Party Christian democracy Erwin Pröll 53.3% SPÖ Social Democratic Party of Austria Social democracy Heidemaria Onodi 33.6% GRÜNE The Greens – The Green Alternative Green politics Madeleine Petrovic 7.2% FPÖ Freedom Party of Austria Right-wing populismEuroscepticism Barbara Rosenkranz 4.5%

In addition to the parties already represented in the Landtag, five parties collected enough signatures to be placed on the ballot.

Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) The Christians (DCP) – on the ballot only in 20 constituencies Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) – on the ballot only in 17 constituencies List for our Lower Austria (LNÖ) – on the ballot only in 6 constituencies Animal Rights Party (TRP) – on the ballot only in Mödling

Results Party Votes % +/− Seats +/− +/− Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) 549,510 54.39 +1.10 31 ±0 6 ±0 Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) 257,770 25.51 –8.04 15 –4 2 –1 Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) 105,748 10.47 +5.98 6 +4 1 +1 The Greens – The Green Alternative (GRÜNE) 69,852 6.91 –0.31 4 ±0 0 ±0 Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) 8,661 0.86 +0.09 0 ±0 0 ±0 The Christians (DCP) 8,537 0.84 New 0 New 0 New Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) 7,250 0.72 New 0 New 0 New List for our Lower Austria (LNÖ) 2,174 0.22 New 0 New 0 New Animal Rights Party (TRP) 854 0.08 New 0 New 0 New Invalid/blank votes 23,339 – – – – – – Total 1,033,695 100 – 56 0 9 0 Registered voters/turnout 1,387,368 74.51 +2.72 – – – –Source: Lower Austrian Government

Results by constituency Constituency ÖVP SPÖ FPÖ Grüne Others Totalseats Turnout % % % % % Amstetten 58.6 3 22.7 1 10.1 6.0 2.6 4 79.1 Baden 47.2 2 29.1 1 12.8 7.9 3.0 3 70.2 Bruck an der Leitha 51.2 30.7 10.7 5.7 1.7 0 72.6 Gänserndorf 47.9 1 30.9 1 12.1 5.9 3.2 2 71.3 Gmünd 54.1 31.1 8.1 4.3 2.4 0 77.9 Hollabrunn 60.7 1 23.5 8.5 5.3 2.1 1 77.8 Horn 68.6 1 18.1 6.4 4.8 2.0 1 79.2 Korneuburg 56.0 1 22.0 10.8 8.7 2.5 1 73.0 Krems an der Donau 60.5 2 21.2 8.9 6.2 3.2 2 76.9 Lilienfeld 51.2 32.2 9.6 4.7 2.3 0 79.5 Melk 55.1 1 26.0 11.0 5.3 2.7 1 80.2 Mistelbach 60.5 2 22.4 9.5 5.5 2.2 2 78.0 Mödling 52.0 2 21.5 9.4 12.9 4.3 2 68.3 Neunkirchen 49.4 1 30.8 1 11.7 5.7 2.4 2 75.2 Sankt Pölten 49.4 2 28.4 1 11.6 7.4 3.2 3 75.6 Scheibbs 60.9 1 21.9 8.9 5.9 2.4 1 80.5 Tulln 58.4 1 22.4 9.7 7.1 2.3 1 75.7 Waidhofen an der Thaya 63.1 20.7 10.2 4.6 1.4 0 78.0 Wiener Neustadt 50.5 2 29.0 1 12.0 5.7 2.7 3 71.9 Vienna Surrounds 46.9 2 27.5 1 11.4 11.6 2.7 3 65.3 Zwettl 70.0 1 15.6 7.8 4.5 2.2 1 81.9 Remaining seats 5 8 6 4 23 Total 54.4 31 25.5 15 10.5 6 6.9 4 2.7 56 74.5 Source: Lower Austrian Government

Preference votes Alongside votes for a party, voters were able to cast a preferential votes for a candidate on the party list. The ten candidates with the most preferential votes were as follows:

Party Candidate Votes ÖVP 1 Erwin Pröll 303,022 91.2 SPÖ 1 Heidemaria Onodi 45,445 58.5 FPÖ 1 Barbara Rosenkranz 45,371 86.8 GRÜNE 1 Madeleine Petrovic 18,973 66.5 SPÖ 2 Emil Schabl 4,131 5.3 ÖVP 3 Wolfgang Sobotka 3,961 1.2 ÖVP 4 Josef Plank 3,748 1.1 ÖVP 2 Ernest Gabmann 2,695 0.8 ÖVP 30 Bettina Rausch 2,441 0.7 SPÖ 13 Josef Jahrmann 2,211 2.8

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