Haslauer’s agony after the election: A coalition beyond the blue and the KPÖ

2023-04-24 16:46:00

The day following a state election marked by heavy losses for the ÖVP, the party of state governor Wilfried Haslauer took the first steps for a new state government in Salzburg. Haslauer, who celebrates his 67th birthday in a week, wants to add another term to the ÖVP despite the result of 30.4 percent (minus 7.4).

Three variants

After the failure of the Neos at the five percent hurdle and the end of the black-green-pink “Dirndl coalition”, Haslauer has three options: a black-blue coalition (secured with 22 of 36 state parliament mandates), a black-red alliance , which would have the narrowest majority of 19 mandates, and a new three-way constellation of ÖVP, SPÖ and Greens (also with 22 mandates).

Video: ÖVP party committees meet

Haslauer wants to open the exploratory talks with the team of FP country chief and election winner Marlene Svazek on Tuesday. The governor announced a meeting for Friday in which he would submit a proposal for coalition negotiations to his VP presidency, which should then start next week.

“It’s not a lot of time, we have four to five weeks to finish it,” said Haslauer, for whom only one variant has already been ruled out. The KPÖ plus, along with the FPÖ one of the two winners of the election, is aiming for the opposition bank.

“Besides, that would be out of the question for me for ideological reasons,” added the governor, who nevertheless wants to hold exploratory talks with top candidate Kay-Michael Dankl.

Although Haslauer is keeping all options open, as is mandatory in this phase, there should be a clear majority opinion among the Salzburg VP leaders. Accordingly, one does not want to enter into a coalition with the FPÖ, because one suspects the strong influence and the radical line of Federal Chairman Herbert Kickl behind it. Because Haslauer himself is said to be at the head of this group, observers before a swing to such a project consider his withdrawal as obvious.

So it would not be a big surprise if Haslauer proposed coalition talks with SP head of state David Egger and with his previous LH deputy and Greens top candidate Martina Berthold on Friday. Even before the top committees of these two parties met on Monday evening, Egger and Berthold had signaled their willingness to work together.

Video: ÖVP analyzed election result

KPÖ second in Salzburg city

The brilliant success of the KPÖ plus, which achieved 11.7 percent from the start with Dankl, was expanded on Monday to include a detailed aspect. In Salzburg city, it reached 21.5 percent (plus 20.3 compared to 2018) and thus came second behind the ÖVP (24.8 percent).

After the KP successes in the Graz elections, which helped Elke Kahr to the mayor’s chair in 2021, and the respectable success that the Bierparties founder Dominik Wlazny (aka Marco Pogo) had in the federal presidential election last year, Dankl is now providing the next impetus for speculation federal level.

From now until the next National Council election in September 2024 at the latest, observers as well as party strategists are concerned with the question of whether a left-wing populist party or an election platform for a nationwide project might be formed by then.

Voters flock from black to blue

The largest share of the record result of FPÖ in Salzburg (25.8 percent) had former VP voters, 19,000 of whom have switched to blue. Marlene Svazek’s party was left with a net 5,000 from the non-voter segment, according to the Sora voter flow analysis for the ORF.

Aside from the losses to the FPÖ, the ÖVP 7000 non-voters and 4000 from the Neos. 67 percent of the 2018 votes were retained. The party of Governor Wilfried Haslauer was able to keep first place (30.4 percent).

Die KPÖ plus (11.7 percent) fished in all camps. 8000 votes each came from SPÖ and Greens, 3000 each from ÖVP, FPÖ and Neos plus 5000 non-voters SPÖ (17.9 percent) and the greens (8.2 percent) suffered their biggest losses in the direction of the KP. The SPÖ won 7,000 votes from the non-voter camp and 3,000 from the FPÖ. The Greens were able to convince 4,000 non-voters and 3,000 of them Neos (4.2 percent), who lost in all directions. The Salzburg election in the 61-head brings no change Federal Councilwhere it goes on to say: ÖVP 25, SPÖ, 18, FPÖ 11, Greens 6 and Neos 1 mandate.