Turnout: 80.00%
About this election
The Austrian legislative election of 15 October 2017 brought the conservative People's Party (ÖVP) back to first place under its new 31-year-old leader Sebastian Kurz, who had rebranded the party as a turquoise movement and taken a hard line on immigration. The result, dominated by the migration question that had defined Austrian politics since the 2015 refugee crisis, paved the way for a controversial coalition between the ÖVP and the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ).
Austria is a federal parliamentary republic. The lower house, the National Council (Nationalrat), has 183 members elected for five-year terms by proportional representation. Seats are allocated in three tiers — 39 regional districts, the nine federal states (Länder) and a final national apportionment — with a 4% national threshold (or a direct regional seat) required to enter parliament. The President, elected separately, appoints the government, but in practice the Chancellor is the leader able to command a majority in the Nationalrat. Voting is from age 16, among the lowest thresholds in the world.
The election was called early after the collapse of the long-running "grand coalition" of the Social Democrats (SPÖ) and the ÖVP. Kurz, having seized control of the ÖVP, ran a presidential-style campaign focused on tightening asylum policy, cutting taxes and curbing welfare for migrants — themes that overlapped heavily with those of Heinz-Christian Strache's FPÖ. Chancellor Christian Kern's SPÖ defended its social record but was thrown onto the defensive, and the campaign was marred by a "dirty campaigning" scandal involving fake Facebook pages.
The ÖVP won 31.47% and 62 seats, its best showing since 2002. The SPÖ took 26.86% and 52 seats, narrowly holding second place ahead of the FPÖ on 25.97% and 51 seats — a strong result for the far right. The liberal NEOS won 5.30% and 10 seats, and the new Peter Pilz List (a Green splinter) entered parliament with 4.41% and 8 seats. In a historic shock, the Greens fell to 3.80% and lost all their seats for the first time since 1986. Regionally, the ÖVP swept six of the nine states, while the SPÖ held its strongholds of Vienna and Burgenland and the FPÖ won Carinthia.
Kurz formed a coalition with the FPÖ, sworn in in December 2017, bringing the far right back into national government. The arrangement collapsed spectacularly in May 2019 when the "Ibiza affair" — a covertly filmed video showing FPÖ leader Strache offering favours to a supposed Russian investor — forced his resignation, brought down the government and triggered the snap election of September 2019.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.