Legislative elections were held in

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 ...

on 29 September 2013 to elect the 25th National Council, the lower house of Austria's bicameral parliament. The parties of the ruling grand coalition, the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), suffered losses, but placed first and second respectively and retained their combined majority. The

Freedom Party of Austria The Freedom Party of Austria (german: Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ) is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Austria. It was led by Norbert Hofer from September 2019 to 1 June 2021.Staff (1 June 2021"Aus ...

(FPÖ) won 20.5%, an increase of three

percentage points A percentage point or percent point is the unit for the arithmetic difference between two percentages. For example, moving up from 40 percent to 44 percent is an increase of 4 percentage points, but a 10-percent increase in the quantity being m ...

, and

The Greens The Greens or Greens may refer to: Current political parties *Australian Greens, also known as ''The Greens'' *Greens of Andorra * Greens of Bosnia and Herzegovina *Greens of Burkina * Greens (Greece) * Greens of Montenegro *Greens of Serbia *Gree ...

achieved their best result up to this point with 12.4% and 24 seats. With the collapse of the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ), which fell below the 4%

electoral threshold The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can ...

and lost all its seats, two new parties entered the National Council:

Team Stronach The Team Stronach for Austria (german: Team Stronach für Österreich) was a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in Austria founded by and named after Austrian-Canadian businessman Frank Stronach. It was dissolved in August 2017. Hi ...

with 5.7% and NEOS – The New Austria with 5.0%. The election saw considerable change in the composition of the National Council; the ruling grand coalition won its lowest combined share of the popular vote in history. The coalition was nonetheless renewed, and

Werner Faymann Werner Faymann (; born 4 May 1960) is an Austrian former politician who was Chancellor of Austria and chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) from 2008 to 2016. On 9 May 2016, he resigned from both positions amid widening critic ...

of the SPÖ remained Chancellor.

Overview

The government is a grand coalition between Austria's two largest parties, the SPÖ and ÖVP, who rule with the SPÖ's

as Chancellor. Support for both governing parties has fallen marginally since the 2008 election. The Freedom Party (FPÖ) and Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) made significant gains in the previous election, but while the FPÖ gained support after the 2008 election, the BZÖ shrank after the death of its founder

Jörg Haider Jörg Haider (; 26 January 1950 – 11 October 2008) was an Austrian politician. He was Governor of Carinthia on two occasions, the long-time leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and later Chairman of the Alliance for the Future of ...

and taking a turn toward

liberalism Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...

. Additionally, nine of the BZÖ's 21 elected members to the National Council changed their party affiliation during the term: five members joined the

, while four joined the FPÖ. Team Stronach, funded by Austrian-Canadian businessman Frank Stronach, has emerged as an anti-

euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

alternative and eventually started to hurt the FPÖ's standing in the polls.

have solidified their position as the fourth-largest party in opinion polls.

Contesting parties

The table below lists parties represented in the 24th National Council.

Qualified parties

In addition to the parties already represented in the National Council, nine parties collected enough signatures to be placed on the ballot. Four of these were cleared to be on the ballot in all states, five of them only in some.

On the ballot in all 9 states

(''FRANK'') * NEOS – The New Austria (''NEOS - Das Neue Österreich'') *

Communist Party of Austria The Communist Party of Austria (german: Kommunistische Partei Österreichs, KPÖ) is a communist party in Austria. Established in 1918 as the Communist Party of Republic of German-Austria, German-Austria (KPDÖ), it is one of the world's oldest ...

(''KPÖ'') *

Pirate Party of Austria The Pirate Party of Austria (german: Piratenpartei Österreichs, PIRAT) is a political party in Austria and part of the global Pirate Party movement which advocates what has come to be known as Pirate politics. It is mostly known for opposing t ...

(''PIRAT'')

On the ballot in some states only

Christian Party of Austria The Christian Party of Austria (german: Christliche Partei Österreichs, CPÖ; formerly the Christians – german: Die Christen) is a minor political party in Austria, founded on 15 October 2005. It changed its name under its new chairman Rudol ...

(''CPÖ'') - on the ballot only in

Upper Austria Upper Austria (german: Oberösterreich ; bar, Obaöstareich) is one of the nine states or of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, an ...

, Styria,

Vorarlberg Vorarlberg ( , ; gsw, label= Vorarlbergisch, Vorarlbearg, , or ) is the westernmost state () of Austria. It has the second-smallest geographical area after Vienna and, although it also has the second-smallest population, it is the state with the ...

and

Burgenland Burgenland (; hu, Őrvidék; hr, Gradišće; Austro-Bavarian: ''Burgnland;'' Slovene: ''Gradiščanska'') is the easternmost and least populous state of Austria. It consists of two statutory cities and seven rural districts, with a total of ...

* The Change (''Der Wandel'') - on the ballot only in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and Upper Austria * Socialist Left Party (''SLP'') - on the ballot only in Vienna * EU Exit Party (''EU-Austrittspartei'') - on the ballot only in Vorarlberg * Men's Party of Austria (''Männerpartei Österreichs'') - on the ballot only in Vorarlberg

Campaign

Issues included corruption scandals across the main parties and Austria's relative financial stability facing a probable crisis.Austrians voting general elections
''Al Jazeera'' 29 September 2013

Opinion polling

Recent opinion polls

Older opinion polls

Results

Results by state

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 federal level were as follows:

Government formation

The " grand coalition" of SPÖ and ÖVP retained their majority. While the SPÖ were keen to renew the coalition, the ÖVP also considered the possibility of a coalition with the FPÖ and another smaller party. On October 14, the SPÖ and the ÖVP agreed to start coalition talks with each other,Austria's biggest parties agree coalition talks
Reuters, Oct. 14 and on December 16, the second Faymann cabinet was formed by the SPÖ and the ÖVP.

References

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 ...