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

The Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) retained its majority. The main winner of the election was the new Team Stronach, which debuted at 9.8%. It drew votes from the ÖVP, Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and Freedom Party of Austria (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. 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 proportional representation 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, with any remaining seats allocated using the D'Hondt method 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. Name Ideology Leader 2008 result Votes (%) Seats Councillors ÖVP Austrian People's Party Christian democracy Erwin Pröll 54.4% SPÖ Social Democratic Party of Austria Social democracy Josef Leitner 25.5% FPÖ Freedom Party of Austria Right-wing populismEuroscepticism Barbara Rosenkranz 10.5% GRÜNE The Greens – The Green Alternative Green politics Madeleine Petrovic 6.9%

In addition to the parties already represented in the Landtag, five parties collected enough signatures to be placed on the ballot.

Team Stronach (FRANK) Communist Party of Austria (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 Party Votes % +/− Seats +/− +/− Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) 495,557 50.79 –3.60 30 –1 6 ±0 Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) 210,504 21.57 –3.94 13 –2 2 ±0 Team Stronach (FRANK) 90,016 9.84 New 5 New 1 New Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) 80,122 8.21 –2.26 4 –2 0 –1 The Greens – The Green Alternative (GRÜNE) 78,678 8.06 +1.15 4 ±0 0 ±0 Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) 7,559 0.77 –0.09 0 ±0 0 ±0 The Brave Citizens (MUT) 5,968 0.61 New 0 New 0 New Christian Party of Austria – Centre Party (CPÖMP) 841 0.09 –0.75 0 ±0 0 ±0 Pirate Party of Austria (PIRAT) 501 0.05 +0.05 0 ±0 0 ±0 Invalid/blank votes 19,527 – – – – – – Total 995,273 100 – 56 0 9 0 Registered voters/turnout 1,404,454 70.87 –3.64 – – – –Source: Lower Austrian Government

Results by constituency Constituency ÖVP SPÖ FRANK FPÖ Grüne Others Totalseats Turnout % % % % % % Amstetten 53.5 2 20.2 1 9.0 7.9 7.6 1.8 3 74.6 Baden 42.9 1 22.6 1 14.4 8.9 9.4 1.9 2 67.0 Bruck an der Leitha 50.2 23.7 10.9 8.1 5.7 1.4 0 69.1 Gänserndorf 46.8 1 25.8 10.7 8.9 6.2 1.6 1 67.3 Gmünd 50.5 28.1 9.0 6.7 4.9 0.9 0 75.3 Hollabrunn 58.1 1 20.3 7.9 7.0 5.3 1.4 1 74.5 Horn 64.1 15.6 6.7 7.4 5.8 0.5 0 76.3 Korneuburg 51.1 1 18.1 10.1 8.0 11.0 1.8 1 69.8 Krems an der Donau 56.1 1 19.1 7.8 7.6 7.4 1.9 1 74.5 Lilienfeld 49.1 27.4 8.9 7.7 5.9 1.0 0 76.3 Melk 51.8 1 22.6 8.1 9.3 6.3 1.8 1 76.6 Mistelbach 57.3 2 19.1 8.4 7.8 6.8 0.7 2 74.0 Mödling 45.3 2 18.6 11.9 7.2 14.8 2.2 2 65.7 Neunkirchen 48.0 1 26.0 9.6 8.6 6.3 1.6 1 70.5 Sankt Pölten 47.4 2 24.3 1 9.5 8.6 8.4 1.9 3 71.7 Scheibbs 55.8 1 21.6 7.4 7.3 5.5 2.4 1 77.0 Tulln 53.8 1 18.4 9.6 8.1 9.3 0.8 1 71.7 Waidhofen an der Thaya 56.8 18.6 8.1 10.6 5.9 0 74.7 Vienna Surrounds 43.4 1 21.9 11.9 8.5 13.0 1.3 1 62.1 Zwettl 64.7 1 13.7 7.3 8.5 5.4 0.5 1 78.3 Remaining seats 11 10 5 4 4 34 Total 50.8 30 21.6 13 9.8 5 8.2 4 8.1 4 1.5 56 70.9 Source: Lower Austrian Government

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:

Party Candidate Votes ÖVP 1 Erwin Pröll 267,482 88.4 SPÖ 1 Josef Leitner 39,706 61.0 FRANK 1 Frank Stronach 29,728 83.5 FPÖ 1 Barbara Rosenkranz 29,099 81.2 GRÜNE 1 Madeleine Petrovic 19,690 67.8 ÖVP 4 Stefan Pernkopf 5,635 1.9 ÖVP 6 Karl Wilfing 4,579 1.5 ÖVP 25 Bettina Rausch 3,118 1.0 SPÖ 4 Heidamaria Onodi 2,747 4.2 FRANK 2 Ernest Gabmann Jr. 2,778 7.8

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