Has the migrant crisis really impacted Austria's politics?

Austria, a small country in Europe's south-east, has been quite substantially impacted by the large numbers of Syrian immigrants travelling towards Western Europe. Like all countries in Europe, Austria's government services have been placed under strain by the large number of people moving through and into the country.

It is not unusual for immigration of this sort to lead to political change in a country. Sweden, for example, has seen substantial gains in recent years for the right-wing anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, which has been linked to concern over increases in immigration. In Germany, Angela Merkel's liberal policy towards Syrian refugees has led to a polling surge for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party.

There is something in common between these two countries. In Sweden, asylum seeker policy has generally been fairly liberal under both the centre-left and centre-right, while in Germany, the liberal asylum seeker policy has been led by centre-right Merkel. Centre-right voters are less likely to support such an immigration policy, leading them to seek alternatives to the right.

At the moment, Austria is governed by a 'grand coalition' of the centre-left Social Democrats and the centre-right People's Party. A government of this sort presiding over high immigration would be likely to alienate People's Party voters concerned about immigration, and cause them to move towards right-wing alternatives. The largest and most prominent of these is the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO).

This party has a long history in Austria. They were formed in 1949 as the Party of Independents, and won 10% of the vote at their electoral debut. For its early years, it was a more liberal party, which had only a small number of seats. Oddly for a country with a very proportional electoral system, at this time Austria had a very strong two-party system, with the Social Democrats and People's Party often being able to form majority governments.

However, the party began to gain traction under the leadership of Jorg Haider. Haider was a more right-wing figure, and led the party in a Eurosceptic direction. This turned out to be electorally profitable; at the party's first election under Haider's leadership (in 1986), the party increased its vote by 4.7%, and by 6.9% in 1990 (probably related to the previous government being a grand coalition. The continuance of the grand coalition up to the 1994 election meant that their vote went up by 5.9% to 22.5%, despite the liberal wing of the party leaving to form the new Liberal Forum. This result meant that they were close to the centre-right.

The 1999 election was the apex of the Freedom Party's support. The party recieved 26.91% of the vote, the same percentage to two decimal places as the People's Party. However, the Freedom Party recieved 417 votes more than the People's Party, making them narrowly the second largest party. Rather than continuing the grand coalition, the People's Party decided to form a government coalition with the Freedom Party. People's Party leader Wolfgang Schlussel became Chancellor, since the parties had an equal number of seats and the Freedom Party were considered to be too extreme to run the government.

The Freedom Party, as the less visible coalition partner, lost a large portion of its support as a result of the coalition. At the 2002 election, the Freedom Party vote went down to just 10%, with the People's Party's vote going up by 15%.

Nonetheless, the coalition of the People's and Freedom parties continued after the election. However, the Freedom Party split in 2005, with Haider forming the new Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZO). This party stayed in the coalition with the People's Party, while the Freedom Party left government.

Internal strife of this sort led to both parties faring poorly at the 2006 election. The Freedom Party won only slightly more votes than their dismal 2002 performance, and polled below the Greens for the first time in their history (only by 538 votes, though), while the BZO only just crossed the 4% threshold under Austria's multi-tier method of party-list proportional representation. It is also worth noting that 2.8% of the vote at this election was taken by the list of Hans-Peter Martin, a Member of the European Parliament who had been prominent in attacking other MEPs for misuse of travel expenses; a populist figure of this nature could be expected to attract the support of Eurosceptic voters who might otherwise be attracted to the Freedom or BZO parties.

However, better days were to come for these two parties. Following the 2006 election, another 'grand coalition' was formed between the two main parties. As has been stated above, such 'grand coalitions' have lead to voter dissatisfaction with the two major parties. The 2006-2008 period also saw the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon, which expanded the powers of the European Union somewhat, without a referendum. In the early 2008 election, both the Freedom and People's parties gained support, at the expense of both major parties.

Following this election, there was little option other than a grand coalition of the Social Democrats and People's Party. However, this coalition was extraordinary weak for a grand coalition in Austria; the two major parties had only 55% of the vote between them.

The BZO suffered a substantial setback following the election, when leader Jorg Haider died in a car accident. This meant that the gains from the weakening of the grand coalition parties, which continued, went heavily to the Freedom Party. The 2008-2013 grand coalition government served its full term, but, as usual, the following election saw a decline in support for the grand coalition parties.

This loss did not only advantage the Freedom Party, but also a new party that had been formed recently. Canadian-Austrian businessman Frank Stronach formed a party, with the support of a number of existing Members of Parliament, called Team Stronach. It was opposed to the European Union, and supportive of economic liberalism. Stronach's strong financial support for the party propelled it to a fairly strong performance at the election. The other new party, The New Austria, was a liberal, pro-European group, which won a small number of seats.

The expected result of the election was a grand coalition government, as before, but with only a small parliamentary majority (with 92 seats needed, the Social Democrats and People's Party had only 99 seats). 

So, how are the FPO doing?

Since the 2015 election, the events of the migrant crisis have taken place. Certain international media reports have suggested that there has been a surge in far-right support. Now, if we look at FPO votes over time, that certainly does seem to be the case.

2016 vote share from this poll.

It's not hard to see why that would be viewed as a surge. However, that's not the whole story. As I've said above, the Austrian far-right has two other parties in it; Team Stronach and the Alliance for the Future of Austria. If we add these two onto our graph, we get a somewhat different one.

This certainly looks a lot less impressive. The increase from 2013 is only 3% if you factor in the Stronach and Alliance votes, which is hardly a party-system shaking change, and certainly not a 'surge'.  Even if we consider that the Stronach Team may not be as anti-immigration as the Freedom Party, the Alliance for the Future of Austria+Freedom Party (with both parties being fairly anti-immigration, and likely to enter coalition with each other if they had a majority) vote share in 2008 was 28%, which makes the increase only 4%.

But what about the presidentials?

One of the other events that has happened in Austria recently was the presidential elections. In these elections, the Freedom candidate Norbert Hofer came first, with Alexander van der Bellen, the Independent Green, in a poor second.

As you can see, the Freedom Party was comfortably ahead; Hofer is not yet President, as he has to contest a second round against van der Bellen, as no candidate won a majority in the first round. Polls for the second round show both candidates at a dead heat; however, since Hofer was substantially underpolled in the first round, it appears likely that he will be elected President.

So, does this mean that there is a massive surge in support for the Freedom Party? Well, that's uncertain. For a start, the presidential race is highly personalistic, as can be seen by the small votes for the Social Democratic and People's candidates compared to their party polling (and as can also be seen by the posters, which do not show party affiliation for certain candidates), and the large number of votes taken by the independent Griss. The results of the presidential election will not necessarily be borne out in the legislative election.

Second, Hofer has the advantage of running against van der Bellen, who has mostly left-wing support. Had Griss, who had more right-wing support, been in the second round, she could have been more competitive, as she would have been able to mobilise both left-wing (in opposition to Hofer) and right-wing support.

While the underpolling for the presidential elections suggests that there could be underlying support not detected in the polls, the polls for the legislative and European elections were quite close to the actual support for the party.

The increase in support for the Freedom Party should not be seen as a massive upsurge in support for them. Instead, it represents consolidation of the voters sympathetic to the right-wing populist policies espoused by them. The party remains short of a majority; however, if Hofer is elected President (by means that, as stated above, do not necessarily suggest a surge in support either), he will be able to appoint the Prime Minister, and dissolve the legislature. This represents the most substantial challenge for the non-Freedom parties, and suggests potential for a constitutional crisis.

Elected prime ministerial government in Kiribati

This post was also posted at Fruits and Votes

One of the rarer forms of government in the world is elected prime ministerial government. Under this system of government, a head of government is directly elected by the voters, but can be removed from office by a majority of members of the legislature. If the elected Prime Minister is removed from office, new elections are held to choose a new Prime Minister and (in some cases) legislature.

The system was most notably used in Israel from 1996 to 2001. It was criticised there for leading to party fragmentation in the legislature (by disconnecting the office of Prime Minister from the legislative elections, while still making the Prime Minister have a majority in said legislature), and leading to more elections and less stable government. As you can see, it was quickly removed, and most publications state it is not used anywhere else in the world. However, it still exists; in the small Pacific nation and former British colony of Kiribati.

Under the Kiribati Constitution, the office of Beretiteni (President) is directly elected, using first-past-the-post. The President appoints ministers from the unicameral legislature (elected using the two-round system), which does not require parliamentary approval. Not unusually for the Pacific Islands, the Attorney-General has a specifically defined role in the Constitution, and I believe holds a legislative seat automatically because of his office.

However, section 2 of article 33 states 

(2) The Beretitenti shall cease to be Beretitenti-

(a) if he resigns his office, by notice in writing addressed to the Speaker; 

(b) if a motion of no confidence in the Beretitenti or the Government is supported in the Maneaba ni Maungatabu by the votes of a majority of all the members of the Maneaba; 

(c) if, in respect of any matter before the Maneaba, the Beretitenti notifies the Speaker that a vote on that matter raises an issue of confidence, and in a subsequent vote on that matter it is rejected by a majority of all the members of the Maneaba;

 (d) if he ceases to be a member of the Maneaba otherwise than by reason of a dissolution of the Maneaba


If, under the provisions of 2a, the Beretiteni is removed from office, the Council of State (a body consisting of the Chairman of the Public Service Commission, the Speaker of the legislature, and the Chief Justice) takes office. 

This is where article 78 kicks in.

78. (1) The Maneaba ni Maungatabu (legislature) shall stand dissolved- 

(a) if a motion of no confidence in the Beretitenti or the Government is supported in the Maneaba by the votes of a majority of all the members of the Maneaba; or

(b) if, in respect of any matter before the Maneaba, the Beretitenti notifies the Speaker that a vote on that matter raises an issue of confidence, and in a subsequent vote on that matter it is rejected by a majority of all the members of the Maneaba. 

As I read it, this would rule out a change in government as a result of a no-confidence vote, as such a vote would automatically dissolve the legislature.

Following a general election, a ballot for Beretiteni is automatically scheduled. The Constitution stipulates that

The Maneaba (legislature) shall after the election of the Speaker nominate, from among members of the Maneaba, not less than 3 nor more than 4 candidates for election as Beretitenti, and no other person may be a candidate

Ordinary legislation is used to govern this election. As far as I can tell, the Borda count was used up to 2002, with voters being allowed to number only four candidates. However, in 2002, the legislation was amended (due to Borda being "complicated" and easy to manipulate)  to have a rather unusual variant of the two-round system. In the first round, the two candidates with the most votes are declared nominated for the Presidency, while in the second round all other candidates are voted on; the top two of these are declared nominated.

Kiribati is unusually stable for a Pacific Island country. Since independence in 1979, there have been only five Beretitenis (excluding leaders of the Council of State who took an interim role in government) compared to eleven Prime Ministers of Vanuatu since 1980 and eight Prime Ministers of Fiji since 1983.

It also has a party system, though it is fairly weak. The Elections Ordinance makes no mention of political parties (except in a section prohibiting advertising from parties in a perimeter around the polling station); however, election results suggest that a substantial number of MPs are affiliated with political parties, as are Presidential candidates. What is confusing about the parties is that the literature I have read suggests that they nominated multiple candidates for the Presidency, which seems like very odd behaviour for a political party.

The first President to lose the confidence of the legislature was Ieremia Tabai. He was re-elected as President in 1982, but without a legislative majority aligned to him. By making a minor bill a matter of confidence, he was able to dissolve the legislature, with opposition MPs apparently going along unsure of the consequences. The result was Tabai's re-election, and a much more compliant legislature.

Tabai's successors, Teato Teannaki, was removed by a vote of no-confidence, and did not run in the 1994 election. His successor, Teburoto Tito, lasted longer, winning three elections, but a poor result by his party in the legislative elections of 2002 meant that his narrow 2003 victory was swiftly followed by a no-confidence vote. In the elections held later in 2003, the Pillars of Truth party won 16 out of 41 seats, to 14 for the Protect the Maneaba. The remaining seats were won by candidates not affiliated to one of the parties. The following Presidential elections saw Pillars of Truth candidate Anote Tong win, narrowly.

Tong was elected two more times, serving his full term both times. His Pillars of Truth party was the largest party in both elections, though without a majority. However, the fairly fluid party system meant that he was able to avoid no-confidence votes.

At the last election, Tong was term-limited (only three terms are allowed), and he was replaced by Taneti Maamau. He is a member of the Tobwaan Kiribati Party. I am not sure how the legislative seats were distributed; IPU gives this group 19 seats to 26 for Pillars of Truth; however, this figure looks like it redistributed independents to the two parties. Either way, the figure suggests that Maamau does not have especially strong support in the legislature.

So, where does this odd constitutional arrangement come from? Well, in preparation for independence, the colonial governor of Kiribati arranged a Constitutional Convention, comprised of 165 members from different parts of the county which he appointed, in order to design a more appropriate constitution. While this was met with protest within certain circles of the British colonial administration, most of the decisions of the convention were adapted in the constitution.

The goal of having an elected President appears to have been to create a figure above parochial local politics, a worthy aim, especially in the Pacific. No-confidence votes leading to elections also might give MPs pause for thought, and lead them to consider negotiation before toppling the President. While I am unsure to what extent Kiribati's constitutional model has led to its relative stability, it is certainly worth a look for other Pacific states.

Note: Information for this post was sourced from the second volume of Nohlen's Elections in Asia and the Pacific as well as Atoll Politics: The Republic of Kiribati edited by Howard Van Trease and Politics in Kiribati edited by Taomati Iuta