The 2015 Burgenland state election was held on 31 May 2015 to elect the members of the 21st Landtag of Burgenland.Burgenland - State election 2015 (in German)

The two major parties, the governing Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), both lost votes. The three minor parties made gains and each doubled their representation in the Landtag.

With the SPÖ falling substantially short of a majority, they required a coalition partner to govern. They subsequently formed a coalition with the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), violating the party's federal directive not to work with FPÖ in government. The decision was subject to backlash and protests, but the coalition took office regardless.

Background In the 2010 election, the SPÖ won 48.3% of votes and fell one seat short of an absolute majority. They thus negotiated a working agreement with the ÖVP.

Before amendments made in 2014, the Burgenland constitution required that cabinet positions in the state government be distributed proportionally among parties based on their share of the votes received. This practice is commonly referred to as Proporz. As such, the government was a perpetual coalition of all parties that qualified for at least one cabinet position. In December 2014, the SPÖ and ÖVP voted to amend the constitution to remove this requirement. As such, the 2015 election was the first in post-war Burgenland history in which conventional coalition formation could take place.

Electoral system The 36 seats of the Landtag of Burgenland are elected via open list proportional representation in a two-step process. The seats are distributed between seven multi-member constituencies, corresponding to the seven districts of Burgenland (the statutory cities of Eisenstadt and Rust are combined with Eisenstadt-Umgebung District). Apportionment of the seats is based on the results of the most recent census.

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.

In addition to voting for a political party, voters may cast preferential votes for specific candidates of that party, but are not required to do so. These additional votes do not affect the proportional allocation based on the vote for the party or list, but can change the rank order of candidates on a party's lists at the state and constituency level. Voters may cast one preferential vote at the state level, or three at the constituency level. A voter may not cross party lines to cast a preference vote for a candidate of another party; such preference votes are invalid.

Contesting parties Name Ideology Leader 2010 result Votes (%) Seats Councillors SPÖ Social Democratic Party of Austria Social democracy Hans Niessl 48.3% ÖVP Austrian People's Party Christian democracy Franz Steindl 34.6% FPÖ Freedom Party of Austria Right-wing populismEuroscepticism Johann Tschürtz 9.0% GRÜNE The Greens – The Green Alternative Green politics Regina Petrik 4.1% LBL List Burgenland Regionalism Manfred Kölly 4.0%

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

NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum (NEOS) Christian Party of Austria (CPÖ)

Opinion polling Polling firm Fieldwork date Samplesize SPÖ ÖVP FPÖ Grüne LBL NEOS Lead 2015 state election 31 May 2015 – 41.9 29.1 15.0 6.4 4.8 2.3 12.8 Gallup 21–23 Apr 2015 400 44 31 13 6 3 3 13 Hajek April 2015 1,000 46 30 12 6 3 3 16 2010 state election 30 May 2010 – 48.3 34.6 9.0 4.1 4.0 – 13.7

Results Party Votes % +/− Seats +/− Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) 77,947 41.92 –6.34 15 –3 Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) 54,082 29.08 –5.54 11 –2 Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) 27,963 15.04 +6.06 6 +3 The Greens – The Green Alternative (GRÜNE) 11,964 6.43 +2.28 2 +1 List Burgenland (LBL) 8,970 4.82 +0.82 2 +1 NEOS – The New Austria (NEOS) 4,337 2.33 New 0 New Christian Party of Austria (CPÖ) 699 0.38 +0.38 0 ±0 Invalid/blank votes 4,594 – – – – Total 190,556 100 – 36 0 Registered voters/turnout 250,607 76.04 –1.26 – –Source: Burgenland Government

Results by constituency Constituency SPÖ ÖVP FPÖ Grüne LBL NEOS Others Totalseats Turnout % % % % % % % Neusiedl 44.5 3 28.0 1 15.9 1 6.0 2.5 2.6 0.5 5 73.9 Eisenstadt 39.4 2 30.7 2 13.3 8.6 5.1 2.6 0.4 4 76.2 Mattersburg 46.5 2 22.5 1 15.9 6.4 6.0 2.5 0.3 3 75.0 Oberpullendorf 42.5 2 30.7 1 10.2 5.7 9.4 1.9 3 79.1 Oberwart 41.6 2 27.6 1 18.0 1 6.3 3.6 2.3 0.5 4 75.8 Güssing 39.9 1 35.0 1 14.7 5.2 3.0 1.8 0.4 2 78.6 Jennersdorf 35.3 32.2 19.2 6.4 4.5 2.0 0.4 0 74.2 Remaining seats 3 4 4 2 2 0 15 Total 41.9 15 29.1 11 15.0 6 6.4 2 4.8 2 2.3 0 0.4 36 76.0 Source: Burgenland 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 on a state level were as follows:

Party Candidate Votes SPÖ 1 Hans Niessl 33,607 ÖVP 1 Franz Steindl 13,707 FPÖ 1 Johann Tschürtz 9,048 LBL 1 Manfred Kölly 3,468 GRÜNE 1 Regina Petrik 3,215 FPÖ 2 Ilse Benkö 2,365 ÖVP 6 Walter Temmel 2,199 ÖVP 14 Patrik Fazekas 2,010 SPÖ 4 Verena Dunst 1,962 ÖVP 2 Michaela Resetar 1,496

References