Blickpunkt Großbritannien Büro London The Chandlery Office 609 50 Westminster Bridge Road GB London SE1 7QY Tel 00 44 20 77 21 87 45 Fax 00 44 20 77 21 87 46 www.feslondon.org.uk October 2006 Voted out of office – The surprising result of the election in Austria in 2006 Austria's Social-Democratic Party SPÖ won a surprise victory at the country's national election on 1st October 2006. During the electoral campaign the party managed to turn strong ini­tial disadvantages into a narrow majority over the conserva­tive ÖVP. The next government will be a grand coalition led by SPÖ-Chairman Alfred Gusenbauer. Karl A. Duffek The initial scenario Back in 2002, early elections had been brought forward after the Federal Chancel­lor, Wolfgang Schüssel(of the ÖVP, the Austrian People's Party) had terminated the alliance with his coalition partners, Jörg Haider's FPÖ. His gamble produced the desired effect: Gains of about 15% put him clearly ahead, with the Social Democrats well back in second position, while the FPÖ incurred considerable losses. Schüssel formed a new government with the FPÖ, which, after a split in the FPÖ, admittedly became increasingly a government led solely by the Conservatives. Schüssel suc­ceeded in holding together his precarious coalition through to the end of the legisla­tive period, although after a half-hearted attempt at pension reforms which would have put a one-sided burden on employ­ees, no important political projects were turned into legislation in the last two years of the government. Rising unemployment, especially among young people(where it almost doubled between 2000 and 2005), low growth rates and low levels of public investment, and an amazing lack of activity in the field of education policy following the poor results of the PISA Study were all fac­tors which tarnished the image of the con­servative/right-wing populist coalition. As a result, at the beginning of 2006 the SPÖ was three to five percentage points ahead in all the polls. Then however, a fi­nancial scandal caused the BAWAG Bank, which belonged to the trade unions, enor­mous damage and brought the Union Con­gress as proprietor to the edge of ruin. The great majority of the acting persons in­volved were Social Democrats or at least close to the SPÖ. Karl Duffek is Director of the Renner Insti­tute, the political academy of the SPÖ in Vi­enna