There was comfort for all three of Austria’s main parties in today’s regional election in the Tirol, with gains in vote share for national ruling coalition partners the People’s Party (OVP) and Freedom Party (FPO) as well the main opposition Social Democrats (SPO).

With 44 per cent of the votes, the OVP adds a second success in 2018 to its victory in Lower Austria last month, and will retain leadership of the regional government in Innsbruck. The Social Democrats put on a healthy 3.5 percentage points to reach just over 17 per cent. Third placed, the FPO had hoped to move into second and to double its vote share from 2013’s score of 9.3 per cent. These targets were missed but the populists still saw the biggest uplift in support at 6.2 percentage points.

The Greens, who had governed in coalition with OVP, were the main losers, slipping back by 2 points to 10.7 per cent. There is still a fair chance they will remain minority partners, with the OVP falling two seats short of a majority in the 36-member Landtag. However victorious OVP governor Guenther Platter could choose from several alternative alliances to ease his party over the majority hurdle.

NEOS or New Austria, contesting their first election in the state, narrowly made it over the 5 per cent threshold for representation, as did the regionalist Liste Fritz.

Disappearing from the Innsbruck chamber is the Vorwaerts Tirol organisation which took 9.5 per cent and 4 seats in 2013. Two splinter lists which emerged after the disintegration of Vorwaerts, Family and Impuls, failed to make any impact today, scoring just 1.6 per cent between them.

Voter turnout at 60 per cent was almost exactly in line with five years ago, notwithstanding Alpine winter temperatures of between minus 3 and minus 8 degrees.

 

TIROL 25 February 2018
Landtag, per cent and total votes
(change on 2013 election in brackets)

OVP (People’s Party) 44.26% (+4.91) or 141,691 votes
SPO (Social Democrats) 17.25% (+3.53) or 55,223
FPO (Freedom Party) 15.53% (+6.19) or 47,727
Gruene (Greens) 10.67% (-1.92) or 34,168
Liste Fritz 5.46% (-0.15) or 17,471
Neos (New Austria) 5.21% (n/a) or 16,670
Family 1.14% (n/a) or 3,645
Impuls 0.48% (n/a) or 1,539

Eligible voters 537,273
Total votes 322,379
Invalid votes 2,245
Valid votes 320,134 (99.3%)
Turnout: 60.0% (2013: 60.4%)

 

Seat allocations in Landtag:
(change on 2013 in brackets)

OVP 17 (+1)
SPO 6 (+1)
FPO 5 (+1)
Greens 4 (-1)
Liste Fritz 2 (nc)
NEOS 2 (n/a)
Others 0 (-4)

Total seats: 36 (previously 36)

Source: Land Tirol. Full provisional official results here.

 

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