The Styrian Governor Christopher Drexler (VP) will also be running as the top candidate in the state elections for the first time in 2024. In Innsbruck, Florian Tursky is trying to win the mayor’s chair for the ÖVP. An overview of the 2024 election debutants.
Karl Nehammer – former Secretary General, now at the top: The Chancellor and VP leader has electoral experience – but not in the front row: As general secretary of the People’s Party, Karl Nehammer organized the 2019 election campaign for the then Chancellor and VP leader Sebastian Kurz.
Half-life
Something that recently even threatened to catch up with the 51-year-old. The Court of Auditors (RH) was of the opinion that the ÖVP had exceeded the election campaign cost limit not only in 2017, but also in 2019 – a view that the Independent Party Transparency Senate (UPTS), which is responsible for sanctions, did not agree with. The ÖVP did not exceed the election campaign cost limit in 2019, the UPTS stated in its decision this year – to the delight of the ÖVP and Nehammer.
With 37.5 percent and a first place by a wide margin, the ÖVP achieved its best result under Kurz in 2019 since 2002. The party will not come close to that this year, even in its most optimistic scenarios.
Nehammer became Interior Minister in 2019. After Sebastian Kurz resigned in late autumn 2021, he first took over the chairmanship of the ÖVP, then the chancellorship (from short-term chancellor Alexander Schallenberg). The People’s Party is currently in third place in surveys with just over 20 percent. Of course, when Nehammer took office as Chancellor in December 2021, surveys showed values of around 25 percent, far away from the 2019 election results.
Image: APA/Erwin Scheriau
Andreas Babler – from local politics to the big stage: Strictly speaking, Andreas Babler (50), SP federal party leader and mayor of Traiskirchen, has already won two elections as the top candidate, but only at the local level, although he was successful there. In local council elections, the SPÖ under Babler in Traiskirchen won more than 70 percent in 2015 and 2020.
At the federal political level, however, the initial spark failed to materialize following Babler’s turbulent election as party leader in June 2023. Since then, the SPÖ has been moving in polls between 21 and 25 percent – these are the same values that brought Babler’s predecessor Pamela Rendi-Wagner into trouble within the party and triggered the red leadership debate.
Because it wasn’t that long ago that the SPÖ was clearly in first place in nationwide surveys. In the summer and autumn of 2022, the Social Democrats scratched the 30 percent mark – the FPÖ and ÖVP were each at around 22 percent. For the time being, Babler can at least claim second place in the polls ahead of the ÖVP.
Image: APA/EXPA/JOHANN GRODER
Herbert Kickl – with shrill tones to the top: The number of elections in which Herbert Kickl worked in the background for the FPÖ has long been several dozen. When it comes to election campaigns, slogans and speeches, the 55-year-old, who began his party career under Jörg Haider in the 1990s, is one of the most experienced active politicians.
Kickl is still in the front row as the top candidate for the first time this year. He was Haider’s speechwriter, Heinz-Christian Strache’s general secretary and interior minister in the turquoise-blue federal government (2017-2019). In the difficult election for the Freedom Party following the Ibiza affair in 2019, Norbert Hofer was defeated as the top candidate (result: 16.9 percent). In June 2021, Kickl replaced Hofer at the head of the FPÖ with his much more strident politics.
Success in the polls was not immediate for the new party leader Kickl. It took a year for the FPÖ to exceed the 20 percent mark in surveys once more in the summer of 2022. Things then went up faster: In autumn 2022 – when Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (VP) made asylum a big issue before the Lower Austrian state elections – the FPÖ made gains from survey to survey. In December 2022 it came to first place for the first time – and has not given up pole position in the surveys since. The FPÖ is currently around 30 percent.
Image: APA/Erwin Scheriau
Christopher Drexler – from summer slump king to country boss: In the 2000s, the then VP club boss made a name for himself in the Styrian state parliament by presenting unconventional ideas that made headlines every summer, at least for the ÖVP. At one point he called for a speed limit of 160 km/h on motorways, at another time he openly called for an end to neutrality. And his push for marriage between same-sex partners was still far from being a majority opinion in the ÖVP in 2004.
When Drexler joined the Styrian state government in 2014, things became quieter around the now 52-year-old (at least nationwide). Until State Governor Hermann Schützenhöfer (VP) made him his successor in June 2022.
This fall at the latest, Drexler has to beat his first state election as the top candidate – and it won’t be easy: in 2019, predecessor Hermann Schützenhöfer was still surfing the wave of VP success created by Kurz and clearly came out on top with 36.1 percent and a gain of more than seven percentage points First place.
There are currently no reliable current surveys in Styria; the last published values date from December or October 2022 and show clear losses for the ÖVP, which falls to 21 to 24 percent and is therefore on a par with the SPÖ and FPÖ.
Image: (APA/Bliem-Sauermann)
Florian Tursky – office manager, state secretary, mayoral candidate: If Florian Tursky’s (35) plan works, his foray into federal politics will initially be a short one: in May 2022, the office manager of the then Tyrolean Governor Günther Platter (VP) moved to the federal government as State Secretary for Digitalization. This April, he is running as the mayoral candidate of the ÖVP and the “For Innsbruck” list in the Tyrolean capital.
The initial situation is – as is so often the case in Tyrolean local politics – complicated. The number of candidates for the mayor’s position is large. The previous VP deputy mayor Johannes Anzengruber (now expelled from the party) is also running with his own list. The Greens currently have Georg Willi as mayor in Innsbruck.
Image: APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH
Meinl-Reisinger, Kogler, Wallner: Almost veterans
He is now the longest-serving leader of a party represented in the National Council: Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler (62). In 2017, the Greens no longer managed to get into the National Council; Kogler took over the party leadership in the difficult situation following the election defeat.
In 2019, he was initially the Green Party’s top candidate in the European elections (result: 14.1 percent), then the top candidate in the National Council election in the fall. Under Werner Kogler, the Greens made a comeback with their best National Council election result to date (13.9 percent).
Neos boss Beate Meinl-Reisinger (45) also has experience as a top candidate on several levels: in 2015 she was the Neos frontwoman in the state elections in Vienna. In 2018 she moved back to the federal level following the then party leader Matthias Strolz announced his withdrawal. Meinl-Reisinger defeated her first nationwide election as the Neos top candidate in 2019 (result: 8.1 percent).
Markus Wallner will be going into his third state election as state governor and head of the Vorarlberg VP in the fall. The now 56-year-old took over the state governor’s chair from his predecessor Herbert Sausgruber in 2011. In its first election in 2014, the ÖVP lost nine percentage points with Wallner, but clearly defended first place with 41.8 percent. In 2019, Wallner’s ÖVP got 43.5 percent.
In any case, the Labor Chamber election in March in Upper Austria will bring a debutant as the top candidate. There, Upper Austria’s Chamber of Labor President Andreas Stangl (54) is running for first place in the Social Democratic Trade Union Group (FSG) for the first time. He took over the office of AK President from his predecessor Johann Kalliauer in November 2021.
Author
Markus Staudinger
Managing editor, deputy Head of Politics Department
Markus Staudinger
