By Ty Malcolm
That's right -- I'm talking about the Austrian one! In the Spring of 2016, Austrians attempted to elect their new Bundespräsident, without success. Here's how it happened:
April 2016: First Round
- Social Democratic Party SPÖ - Rudolf Hundstorfer*
- Austrian People's Party ÖVP - Andreas Khol*
- Freedom Party FPÖ - Norbert Hofer
- Independent - Alexander Van der Bellen
- Independent - Irmgard Griss
- Independent - Richard Lugner
I've marked the first two candidates with *, because they were the members of the two major parties currently in government in Austria. It makes sense that if your party is already in government, there's a good chance that people will vote for you. But here's how the results broke down:
- Hofer (35%)
- Van der Bellen (21%)
- Griss (19%)
Neither of the * candidates made it past the first round! So already, the election was shaping up to be interesting. The Austrian people simply weren't interested in continuing with the same parties they had, leading to a historic upset. Since no candidate got a majority, they had to do a run-off vote between the Top 2.
May 2016: Second Round
Norbert Hofer vs Alexander Van der Bellen (for short, VdB)
As with any election that comes down to two, the race became very polarized. Regardless of where they started, VdB became the "status-quo" candidate, and Hofer became the "radical change" candidate. Hofer gained popularity speaking out against the EU's bungling of the Syrian Refugee Crisis, while VdB, a former economics professor, threw his support behind the customs union.
Hofer hinted at a Austrian exit (Öxit) from the EU, and strict border controls to combat migrant and refugee crossings. While he wasn't outright promising to "Make Austria Great Again," many of the Hofer's campaign promises reflected a similar-to-Trump worldview of "country-first" at the expense of regional integration and multiculturalism. For this reason, EU-watchers have been a bit nervous. After Brexit and the Refugee Crisis, Austria seemed like the next domino in line to push over the European Union. Hofer has since walked back his statement about Öxit, but has continued to support putting more national policies to a direct-vote.
With all the in-person ballots counted, it looked like Hofer had won with 51.9% of the vote. Once the mail-in ballots were counted, Van der Bellen had won, with 50.3%! Tempers were running high, and both sides accused the other of tampering, cheating, or trying to destroy the country. (To be fair, many other Austrians probably took the result with less interest, since turnout was about 70%) At any rate, the Supreme Court of Austria decided the discrepancies and close result warranted a recount. As an impartial foreign observer, I can't really find anything wrong with that decision - the race was super close!
In the meantime, comparisons were made to the American race with Hillary and Trump, and memes and protests began to create a cloud of negativity around the whole ordeal. Several heated televised debates only served to strengthen the comparison. To an American, many of the Austrian issues are a bit different compared to how they are in America. Austria would view our labor and healthcare systems as too harsh, and our gun laws and tax code as not harsh enough. And as a small country of about 8 million people, Austria does have more reason to worry about Syrian refugees than the United States, a country of over 300 million an ocean away. So thankfully in this election, I've been able to take a backseat.
Today (Saturday, 3. December) there was a large anti-Hofer protest near the Museumsquartier. Later in the day, pro-Hofer protests would meet them with bullhorns and signs of their own. Like any good polarized race, each side continued to accuse the other of trying to destroy the country. But, like my native-Austrian classmates, I will have courses on Monday. I'm sure the next Bundespräsident, whoever he turns out to be, cannot destroy Austria quite that fast.