The 2013 Lower Austrian state election was held on 3 March 2013 to elect the members of the

Landtag of Lower Austria The Landtag of Lower Austria is the state parliament of the Austrian state of Lower Austria. It exercises the state legislation (legislature). The seat of the Landtag is in St. Pölten in the Landhausviertel. The Lower Austrian Parliament is comp ...

. The

Austrian People's Party The Austrian People's Party ( , ÖVP ) is a Christian-democratic and liberal-conservative political party in Austria. Since January 2025, the party has been led by Christian Stocker (as an acting leader). It is currently the second-largest p ...

(ÖVP) retained its majority. The main winner of the election was the new

Team Stronach The Team Stronach for Austria () 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. History The new party was registered ...

, which debuted at 9.8%. It drew votes from the ÖVP,

Social Democratic Party of Austria The Social Democratic Party of Austria ( , SPÖ) is a social democratic political party in Austria. Founded in 1889 as the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (, SDAPÖ) and later known as the Socialist Party of Austria () from 1945 unt ...

(SPÖ) and

Freedom Party of Austria The Freedom Party of Austria (, FPÖ) is a political party in Austria, variously described as far-right, right-wing populist, national-conservative, and Eurosceptic. It has been led by Herbert Kickl since 2021. It is the largest of five part ...

(FPÖ).

Background

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

Proporz ''Proporz'' (, from , "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 or public support. More b ...

. As such, the government is a perpetual coalition of all parties that qualify for at least one state councillor. After the 2008 election, the ÖVP had six councillors, the SPÖ two, and the FPÖ one.

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 Political party, party's candidates are elected. This is as opposed to closed list, in which party lists ...

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 ...

in a two-step process. The seats are distributed between twenty 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 (sometimes called the simple, ideal, or Hamilton quota) is the number of voters represented by each legislator in an idealized system of proportional representation where every vote is used to elect someone. The Hare quota is eq ...

, 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 an apportionment method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in proportional representation among political parties. It belongs to ...

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. *

(''FRANK'') *

Communist Party of Austria The Communist Party of Austria (, 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 Communist party, communist parties. The KP� ...

(''KPÖ'') – on the ballot only in 19 constituencies * The Brave Citizens (''MUT'') – on the ballot only in 13 constituencies * Christian Party of Austria – Centre Party (''CPÖMP'') – on the ballot only in 4 constituencies * Pirate Party of Austria (''PIRAT'') – on the ballot only in 1 constituency

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:

Aftermath

The ÖVP retained its Landtag majority and six out of nine state councillors; the SPÖ also retained its two councillors. The FPÖ lost their sole state councillor to Team Stronach.

References

{{Austrian local elections 2013 elections in Austria State elections in Austria March 2013 in Austria