Constituent Assembly elections were held in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

on 16 February 1919. The Social Democratic Workers' Party emerged as the largest party, winning 72 of the 170 seats. The party was largely supported by the working class, whilst farmers and the middle class voted mainly for the anti-''

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "German Question, Greater Germany") arose after t ...

'' Christian Social Party.Nohlen & Stöver, p173 Voter turnout was 84.4%. As Czechoslovakia prevented their eligible population from participating in the election, and

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

had gained control of

South Tyrol South Tyrol ( , ; ; ), officially the Autonomous Province of Bolzano – South Tyrol, is an autonomous administrative division, autonomous provinces of Italy, province in northern Italy. Together with Trentino, South Tyrol forms the autonomo ...

(as a result of the

1915 Treaty of London The Treaty of London (; ) or the Pact of London (, ) was a secret agreement concluded on 26 April 1915 by the United Kingdom, France, and Russia on the one part, and Kingdom of Italy, Italy on the other, in order to entice the last to enter ...

) and

Lower Styria Styria (, ), also known as Slovenian Styria (; ) or Lower Styria (; ) to differentiate it from Austrian Styria, is a traditional region in northeastern Slovenia, comprising the southern third of the former Duchy of Styria. The population of St ...

(following border conflicts), respectively, voting only was held in small parts of those eligible territories, and representatives were instead appointed in proportion to parties' total overall vote share. The first meeting of the assembly was on 4 March 1919. The Sudeten German Social Democrats organised a series of demonstrations in support of their right of

self-determination Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage. Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...

. Across seven cities 54 persons were killed and another 84 wounded by the Czech military and police.

Electoral system

The members of the Constituent National Assembly were elected in multi-member constituencies having between four and nine seats each by

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

. The smallest constituency was originally set to elect three seats, but did not do so due to Yugoslavia having gained control of most of Lower Styria. This election was the first election in which all women were allowed to vote. German citizens living in Austria, Lower Styria, and South Tyrol and

Sudeten Germans German Bohemians ( ; ), later known as Sudeten Germans ( ; ), were ethnic Germans living in the Czech lands of the Bohemian Crown, which later became an integral part of Czechoslovakia. Before 1945, over three million German Bohemians constitute ...

living in the newly-formed

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

were also allowed to vote in the elections, despite Czechoslovak objections. Austrian citizens living in Germany were also allowed to vote in the

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated ...

for the

Weimar National Assembly The Weimar National Assembly (German: ), officially the German National Constitutional Assembly (), was the popularly elected constitutional convention and de facto parliament of Germany from 6 February 1919 to 21 May 1920. As part of it ...

in the same year.AUSTRIA VOTES TODAY. - German Part of Former Dual Monarchy Chooses Its Constituent Assembly.
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', February 16, 1919 (

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

)

Results

The two main parties, the SDAPÖ and the CS, formed a coalition government after the elections. Although it had broken up by mid-1920, it was followed for a short time by a transitional coalition of SDAPÖ, CS, and the

Greater German People's Party The Greater German People's Party ( German ''Großdeutsche Volkspartei'', abbreviated GDVP) was a German nationalist political party during the First Republic of Austria, established in 1920. Foundation After World War I and the dissolution of ...

, a successor of the

German People's Party The German People's Party (German: , DVP) was a conservative-liberal political party during the Weimar Republic that was the successor to the National Liberal Party of the German Empire. Along with the left-liberal German Democratic Party (DDP), ...

following a merger with the Greater German Union. Ultimately, a new constitution was agreed on 1 October 1920. Fresh elections were held on 17 October.

References

{{Austrian elections Constituent

Constituent Assembly elections in Europe