The ÖVP clearly defended first place in the state elections in Vorarlberg on Sunday despite losses. According to the preliminary results from Sunday evening (including the majority of postal votes), the People’s Party got 38.38 percent ahead of the FPÖ with 28.21 percent. The Greens slipped to third place with just 12.28 percent. The race for fourth place between the SPÖ and Neos was close; in the ballot box results, the SPÖ was just ahead of the Neos with 8.80 percent with 9.08 percent.
According to the APA/ORF/Foresight projection (including voting card forecast), the SPÖ remains ahead of the Neos with 8.9 percent with 9.1 percent. Fourth place is still open due to the fluctuation range of 0.3 percentage points in the projection.
What is now certain is that – in addition to a solid black-blue majority in the state parliament of 26 seats – there would also be a black-green majority. This constellation would have an extremely narrow majority of 19 seats. The ÖVP lost two seats to 15 seats. The FPÖ gains six seats and thus maintains eleven members of the state parliament.
The Greens will lose three of their seats and will now be represented in the state parliament with four representatives. The SPÖ will lose one mandate and will have three in the future. The Neos’ mandate remains unchanged at three seats.
According to the current results, voter turnout was 65.66 percent (2019: 64.41 percent), including the voting card forecast, it is likely to rise to 68.1 percent. The remaining postal votes will be counted on Tuesday.
According to the APA/ORF/Foresight voting card forecast, the vote shares will only change slightly: According to this, the ÖVP, including all outstanding postal votes, will have 38.3 percent, the FPÖ will have 28.0 percent. The Greens are shown with 12.5 percent, the SPÖ with the aforementioned 9.1 and the Neos with 8.9 percent.
All other candidate lists remained far away from the crucial five percent hurdle. List
“Clear government mandate”
For ÖVP top candidate and state governor Markus Wallner, the result of his party is “clearly above expectations”. He saw this as a “more than clear government mandate”, but one could also see “clear desires for change” in it, for example in housing, bureaucracy and immigration. Wallner was satisfied that the gap to the second-ranked FPÖ was more than ten percentage points. It is now a matter of quickly forming a government.
“The bottom line is that joy prevails,” said Wallner, when asked about the loss of almost five percentage points compared to the 2019 state election. The result of 38.6 percent (according to projections) was not to be expected, said the state governor, considering the losses suffered by ruling parties in Europe. Losses of four to five percentage points had to be expected anyway. Nevertheless, we will look closely at the result. He also saw the result as a sign of the “high level of trust in myself,” and he was very grateful for that.
The choice in the live ticker:
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