The 2008 Lower Austrian state election was held on 9 March 2008 to elect the members of the Landtag of Lower Austria. The

Austrian People's Party The Austrian People's Party (german: Österreichische Volkspartei , ÖVP ) is a Christian-democratic and liberal-conservative political party in Austria. Since December 2021, the party has been led provisionally by Karl Nehammer. It is curr ...

(ÖVP) retained its majority. The major opposition party, the

Social Democratic Party of Austria The Social Democratic Party of Austria (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs , SPÖ), founded and known as the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (german: link=no, Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Österreichs, SDAPÖ) unti ...

(SPÖ), suffered substantial losses. 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"Au ...

(FPÖ) partially recovered from its 2003 losses, more than doubling its voteshare and tripling its number of seats.

Background

The Lower Austrian constitution mandates that cabinet positions in the state government (state councillors, german: Landesräten) be allocated between parties proportionally in accordance with the share of votes won by each; this is known as

Proporz ''Proporz'' (, from german: Proportionalität, "proportionality") is a long-standing practice in the Second Austrian Republic in which positions in government are distributed between political parties in a manner proportional to their electoral o ...

. As such, the government is a perpetual coalition of all parties that qualify for at least one state councillor. After the 2003 election, the ÖVP had six councillors and the SPÖ three.

Electoral system

The 56 seats of the Landtag of Lower Austria are elected via

open list Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a party's candidates are elected. This is as opposed to closed list, which allows only active members, p ...

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

in a two-step process. The seats are distributed between twenty-one multi-member constituencies. 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 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 ...

, with any remaining seats allocated using 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 highe ...

at the state level, to ensure overall proportionality between a party's vote share and its share of seats.

Contesting parties

The table below lists parties represented in the previous Landtag. In addition to the parties already represented in the Landtag, five parties collected enough signatures to be placed on the ballot. *

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 German-Austria (KPDÖ), it is one of the world's oldest communist parties. The KPÖ ...

(''KPÖ'') * The Christians (''DCP'') – on the ballot only in 20 constituencies * Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) – on the ballot only in 17 constituencies * List for our Lower Austria (''LNÖ'') – on the ballot only in 6 constituencies * Animal Rights Party (''TRP'') – on the ballot only in

Mödling Mödling () is the capital of the Austrian district of the same name located approximately 14 km south of Vienna. Mödling lies in Lower Austria's industrial zone (Industrieviertel). The Mödlingbach, a brook which rises in the Vienna Woods, ...

Results

Results by constituency

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 were as follows:

References

{{Austrian local elections 2008 elections in Austria State elections in Austria March 2008 events in Europe