The 2023 Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) leadership election developed when Pamela Rendi-Wagner, the incumbent SPÖ chairwoman since 2018, was openly challenged by her main critic Hans Peter Doskozil, the Landeshauptmann of Burgenland. To decide the power struggle, the SPÖ decided on an advisory survey among all party members. Initially the survey was planned to be a duel with both participants agreeing to withdraw in case they would not win. However, the survey was finally opened to other candidates. Among the many applicants (a major share non-serious), Andreas Babler was the only contestant winning enough support to be included in the survey.

The non-binding vote was conducted by mail and online, between 24 April and 10 May 2023. Results were released on 22 May 2023 with each candidate earning roughly 1/3 of the votes. Doskozil won, Babler came in second, and Rendi-Wagner very narrowly in third place. Rendi-Wagner announced her resignation on 23 May 2023.

Following the vote, an extraordinary party congress was then held in Linz on 3 June 2023, at which delegates elected Babler as the new chairperson with over 53% of the vote after initially declaring incorrectly that Doskozil had won.

Overview

The leadership election became necessary after Hans Peter Doskozil, a migration hardliner from Eastern Austria, applied for the party chair after years of publicly cross-firing against then party leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner, the first woman to lead the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) on a federal level. Until then, a colleague has never challenged an incumbent SPÖ chairperson. For months, the Social Democrats were in second place behind the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) in Austrian polls, although they were almost consistently in the lead in 2022, sometimes even topping 30%. By the end of March 2023, some polls showed that the SPÖ fell into third place, which has been attributed to the infighting in the preceding months.

The party member vote started the day after the 2023 Salzburg state election, in which the SPÖ received its worst election result ever. The SPÖ previously lost a significant share of votes in the 2023 Lower Austrian state election in January and in the 2023 Carinthian state election in March. With the leadership election, the party therefore hopes for a turnaround ahead of the next Austrian legislative election, to be held by Autumn 2024. According to SPÖ party statutes, the vote results by party members will be non-binding to the delegates at the extraordinary party congress on 3 June. Rendi-Wagner and Doskozil have pledged to accept the results of the party member vote. Babler has not done so, instead calling for a runoff vote. He also indicated that he might run as a candidate at the extraordinary party congress on 3 June, even if he doesn't get the plurality in the member vote.

Candidates On 22 March, the SPÖ announced that anyone with an active party membership by Friday, 24 March 2023, can be a candidate in the election. Potential candidates also had until midnight on 24 March to submit their candidacy. As of 23 March, there were at least 7 publicly announced candidates. Following the announcement of Traiskirchen mayor Andreas Babler as a candidate, some candidates have withdrawn or were considering withdrawing their candidacy. Nikolaus Kowall, who, like Babler, represents the left wing of the party, withdrew his candidacy and endorsed Babler instead.

On 25 March, the SPÖ announced that 73 people submitted their candidacy by the end of the deadline, among them 69 men and 4 women. The SPÖ checked the validity of their registrations and debated their ballot access in its final leadership committee meeting on 27 March. On 11 April, the SPÖ announced that only 3 of the 73 submitted candidacies qualified for the ballot.

Official candidates on the ballot

(ranked by placement on the ballot)

Pamela Rendi-Wagner, current party leader Hans Peter Doskozil, current governor of Burgenland Andreas Babler, current mayor of Traiskirchen

There was also a 4th option on the ballot: "None of the above-mentioned candidates."

Other candidates , vice party leader of the SPÖ-Alsergrund, was the first person to announce his bid for the party leadership apart from Rendi-Wagner and Doskozil. Therefore, the SPÖ opened the survey for other candidates. When two days later Babler announced to enter the race, Kowall withdrew and endorsed Babler.

Using the ballot for his own publicity, right-wing populist Gerald Grosz announced to have applied for SPÖ membership and leadership, but both attempts were immediately disqualified by the SPÖ.

Conduct

Rules of the election Primary organizational questions about how the leadership election should be conducted were debated and announced in late March 2023 by the SPÖ's top party committees. On 22 March 2023, the SPÖ announced the date of the membership vote (from 24 April to 10 May). It further confirmed that the vote will be held by mail and online, overseen by an official independent notary and independent IT experts. Following the party member vote, a subsequent extraordinary party congress will be held on 3 June to elect the new chairperson. Initially, about 140,000 party members were eligible to vote. The deadline to register as a new party member of the SPÖ and receive a vote was Friday, 24 March 2023. The same deadline applied to party members seeking a candidacy. On 25 March 2023, the SPÖ announced that it received about 9.000 new applications for party membership before the deadline, that the applications will be reviewed and checked for validity in the coming days and that the final number of eligible voters will be released. On Monday, 27 March 2023, the conduct of the leadership election and remaining questions was finalized and approved by the SPÖ's top party committee. Final unresolved questions include the number of candidates and if all serious candidacies submitted by the deadline should be allowed onto the ballot. With 73 people registering their candidacy before the deadline, some committee members are calling for additional hurdles for ballot access, such as collecting a certain number of signatures from party members. Another question to be resolved is the possibility (or necessity) of a runoff election, in case no candidate should reach a majority of votes.

The SPÖ announced that by Friday, 31 March 2023, that all 73 potential candidates must submit the following to the party:

at least 30 signatures from fellow party members an official government document declaring they have no criminal record declare that they are not a member of another party that they are eligible to be a candidate for the 2024 Austrian legislative election a formal application document with name, address, citizenship, picture, contact information, a personal curriculum vitae and preferably a short introduction or motivational video to be posted on the SPÖ candidate website as information for voters in the leadership election

The SPÖ decided to introduce these criteria to avoid fake or joke candidacies among the 73 submitted candidate applications and to narrow down the ballot to include serious candidates only. There was at least one application in which a giraffe wanted to become the next SPÖ leader. There would be no runoff if no candidate receives a majority of the votes.

Election confirmation On 11 April 2023, the SPÖ announced that only Rendi-Wagner, Doskozil, and Babler met the criteria above and could appear on the ballot, while the remaining 70 submitted candidacies were either invalid, incomplete or withdrawn. The party further announced that the result of the membership vote by mail and online will be released no sooner than 22 May 2023. This is because mail ballots from party members can be received up until 17 May 2023, with a post stamp no later than 10 May 2023. Mail votes would trump online votes in case a party member accidentally or intentionally voted twice. The vote-counting process would be administered and cross-checked by the SPÖ's internal voting commission, independent notaries, and IT experts.

Opinion polls First round Only SPÖ party members were able to take part in the vote. Polls only measured the views of the general population and SPÖ voters. Fieldwork date Pollster Sample size Rendi-Wagner Doskozil Babler Others/None Undecided/Don't know 8–10 May 2023 Market-Lazarsfeld SPÖ voters43% 16% 28% 12% — 24–26 April 2023 Market-Lazarsfeld 1,000 voters 16%25% 17% 41% — SPÖ voters 31%33% 29% 8% — 11–13 April 2023 Unique Research 800 voters 20%29% 15% 27% 9% SPÖ voters49% 20% 18% 11% 3% 27–29 March 2023 Market-Lazarsfeld 1,000 voters 16%21% 12% 15%36% SPÖ voters37% 18% 17% 9% 18% 20–23 March 2023 Unique Research 800 voters 26%39% — 26% 9% SPÖ voters63% 22% — 9% 5% 20–22 March 2023 Market-Lazarsfeld 1,000 voters 24%37% — —40% SPÖ voters49% 37% — — 14%

Second round Only SPÖ party delegates will be able to take part in the vote. Polls only measured the views of SPÖ voters. Fieldwork date Pollster Sample size Doskozil Babler 23–25 May 2023 Market-Lazarsfeld 213 SPÖ voters 49%51%

General election Polling firm Fieldwork date Samplesize Method ÖVP Babler Doskozil Rendi-Wagner FPÖ Grüne NEOS KPÖ Others Lead Market-Lazarsfeld 26–31 May 2023 511 Online 26 19 31 7 9 3 3 5 489 22 20 27 10 14 6 1 5 IFDD 25–27 May 2023 1,208 Online 24 26 27 8 8 4 3 1 22 25 26 10 9 6 2 1 OGM 22–24 May 2023 1,186 Online 23 26 28 8 9 4 2 2 20 24 26 10 10 8 2 2Market-Lazarsfeld 27–29 Mar 20231,000Online 22 16 31 11 13 7 9 20 25 28 10 12 5 3 21 21 29 10 13 6 3Unique Research 20–23 Mar 2023800Phone & Online 21 31 25 11 10 3 6 25 24 28 11 9 3 3Peter Hajek 7–10 Nov 2022800Phone & Online 20 32 21 10 12 5 11 22 27 25 10 10 6 2

Results Results of the non-binding party member survey Results were released on 22 May 2023 with Hans Peter Doskozil winning, Andreas Babler coming in second and Pamela Rendi-Wagner in third place.

On 11 May 2023, before the results were announced, the leader of the 20-member SPÖ election commission, , who was a Rendi-Wagner supporter, resigned because of health reasons. He was replaced by , a Doskozil supporter, with the overall size of the election commission shrinking to 19. Members who resign cannot be replaced during the term as they are elected at the party convention.

Grubesa announced that "she wants to make the vote counting process as transparent as possible" and invited representatives of all 3 candidates to oversee the vote count, as well as notaries and external IT experts.

Results of the extraordinary party congress Final result

Initially, 609 delegates were invited to elect the new party chairman. Outgoing party chairwoman Pamela Rendi-Wagner announced that she would not attend the extraordinary party congress because she wanted to leave the stage completely open to the two contenders and eventually the new party chairman. At the start of the extraordinary party congress, it was announced that 603 of the 609 invited delegates were present. Of the 603 delegates present, 602 cast a ballot.

Result mix-up