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The National Council (german: Nationalrat) is one of the two houses of the Austrian Parliament and is frequently referred to as the
lower house A lower house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the upper house. Despite its official position "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has come to wield more power or oth ...
. The
constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princi ...
endows the National Council with far more power than the Federal Council.


Responsibilities

The National Council is where Austria's federal
legislative A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known a ...
authority is concentrated; for a bill to become federal law, it must be resolved upon by this chamber. Bills passed by the National Council are sent to the Federal Council for corroboration. If the Federal Council approves of the bill or simply does nothing for eight weeks, the bill has succeeded. If the Federal Council vetoes the bill, the National Council may still force it into law by essentially just passing it again; a National Council resolution overruling a Federal Council objection merely has to meet a higher
quorum A quorum is the minimum number of members of a deliberative assembly (a body that uses parliamentary procedure, such as a legislature) necessary to conduct the business of that group. According to ''Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised'', the ...
than a regular resolution. In other words, the Federal Council does not have any real power to prevent adoption of legislation, the National Council being easily able to override it. There are three exceptions to this rule: * Constitutional laws or regulations limiting the competencies of the federal states * Laws relating to the rights of the Federal Council itself * Treaties concerning the jurisdiction of the federal states. The approval of the National Council is also required for most of the prerogatives of the Federal Assembly to be exercised. For example, motions to call for a
referendum A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...
aimed at having the President removed from office by the electorate, and motions to declare war all need a two-thirds majority in the National Council. Only motions to
impeach Impeachment is the process by which a legislative body or other legally constituted tribunal initiates charges against a public official for misconduct. It may be understood as a unique process involving both political and legal elements. In ...
the President can also be from the Federal Council.


Elections

The 183 members of the National Council are elected by nationwide popular vote for a term of five years; each Austrian sixteen years or older on the day the election takes place is entitled to one vote. National Council elections are
general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
s. The voting system aims at
party-list proportional representation Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a subset of proportional representation electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected (e.g., elections to parliament) through their position on an electoral list. They can also be us ...
and uses partially open lists: * For the purpose of National Council elections, the nine
states of Austria Austria is a federal republic made up of nine states ( German: ''Länder''). Since ''Land'' is also the German word for "country", the term ''Bundesländer'' (literally ''federal states'') is often used instead to avoid ambiguity. The Constitutio ...
constitute regional electoral districts. The nine regional electoral districts are subdivided into a total of 39 local electoral districts. Political parties submit separate ranked lists of candidates for each district, regional or local, in which they have chosen to run. They also submit a federal-level list. * Votes cast are first counted within their local electoral districts. Since there are 39 local districts but 183 seats to fill, most local districts are multi-member districts. The number of seats assigned to each local district is based solely on electoral district population, as established by the most recent census; the partitioning and apportionment rules are simple enough to prevent
gerrymandering In representative democracies, gerrymandering (, originally ) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The m ...
from becoming an issue. The number of votes required to win one seat is simply the number of votes divided by the number of seats assigned to the district in question (ie the
Hare Quota The Hare quota (also known as the simple quota) is a formula used under some forms of proportional representation. In these voting systems the quota is the number of votes that guarantees a candidate, or a party in some cases, captures a seat. Th ...
). For example, if 150,000 votes are cast in a five-seat local district, it takes 30,000 votes to win one seat. If a party has scored 61,000 votes out of the 150,000 votes cast, it is entitled to two seats, to be taken by the first two candidates on the party's local district list. Since 60,000 votes would have been sufficient to win two seats, 1000 votes are left unaccounted for by this first round of tallying. * Any vote not accounted for on the local level is dealt with on the regional level, provided that the party it has been cast for has obtained at least four percent of the regional total vote. The system is analogous to that used on the district level; the number of seats assigned to a regional district is simply the number of seats assigned to one of its constituent local districts but not filled during the first round of tallying. * Any vote not accounted for on the regional level either is dealt with on the federal level, provided that the party it has been cast for has obtained at least four percent of the federal total vote. The
D'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highest- ...
is used to allocate any National Council seats remaining to be filled. In addition to voting for a party list, voters may express preference for one individual candidate in the same party list. This means it is not possible to simultaneously vote for the party list of one party but exert influence on the candidate rankings on the party list of another party. A candidate receiving sufficiently many personal votes can rise in rank on his or her district party list; voters thus have a certain degree of influence as to which particular individual wins which particular seat.


Peculiarities

Austria's federal constitution defines Austria as a semi-presidential democracy: the
executive Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to: Role or title * Executive, a senior management role in an organization ** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators ** Executive d ...
branch of government is supposed to be headed by the
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
, but is also answerable to the National Council. In practice, however, nearly all of the day-to-day work of governing is left to the
Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
and Cabinet, which are dependent on the confidence of the National Council. The President has the theoretical right to name anyone eligible to serve in the National Council as a minister or Chancellor. However, the National Council's right to sack a minister or the entire cabinet makes it all but impossible for Presidents to appoint a government entirely of their own choosing or keep it in office against the will of the National Council. While the President has the theoretical authority to dissolve a hostile National Council, constitutional convention prevents this power from being exercised. Austria accordingly functions as a
parliamentary democracy A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the ...
: for all intents and purposes, the cabinet is subject to approval by the National Council and is responsible to it, with the president being little more than a figurehead. A related discrepancy between Austrian constitutional theory and Austrian political practice is that the constitution defines the President of the National Council to be Austria's second highest public official, junior only to the president proper. As a practical matter, however, the Chancellor, who nominally ranks third in the Austrian order of precedence, is the country's leading political figure. Thus, the President of the National Council is a representative of rather moderate significance: wielding less power than the president by extension means wielding less power than the Chancellor or even most federal ministers. The President of the National Council thus serves mostly as a moderator of parliamentary debate.


Latest election


Results by state


Historical composition of the National Council


1919-1930


Since 1945


Current composition of the National Council


See also

* List of presidents of the National Council of Austria *
Federal Assembly (Austria) {{Politics of Austria The Federal Assembly (german: Bundesversammlung) is the name given to a formal joint session of the two houses of the bicameral Austrian Parliament, the National Council and the Federal Council. It is chaired by the presiden ...
*
Federal Council (Austria) The Federal Council (german: Bundesrat, ) is the upper house of the Austrian Parliament, representing the nine States of Austria at the federal level. As part of a bicameral legislature alongside of the National Council, it can be compared wi ...
*
Politics of Austria Politics in Austria reflects the dynamics of competition among multiple political parties, which led to the formation of a Conservative-Green coalition government for the first time in January 2020, following the snap elections of 29 Septembe ...
*
List of legislatures by country This is a list of legislatures by country. A "legislature" is the generic name for the national parliaments and congresses that act as a plenary general assembly of representatives and that have the power to legislate. All entities included ...


References


External links

*
National Council Elections Statute
official rules and regulations {{DEFAULTSORT:National Council Of Austria
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous c ...
Politics of Austria Austrian Parliament Government agencies with year of establishment missing Organisations based in Vienna