A tale of firsts: the 2019 Austrian snap election

The 2019 Austrian snap election, held on 29 September 2019, was preceded by a series of scandals. Most prominent among them was the so-called 'Ibizagate' involving the former Vice-Chancellor and FPo party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache. The scandal eventually led to the collapse of the oVP-FPo coalition in May 2019 and the formation of a caretaker government. The election day in September brought a clear victory for the oVP with an increase of almost six percentage points, compared to its vote share in the 2017 election. The second big winner was the Green party which scored the best result in the party history with 13.9 per cent of the vote. Amid scandals, the FPo saw its support fall to only 16.2 per cent; the election also resulted in an all-time low for the SPo achieving only 21.2 per cent. The article presents the background, the election campaign and the results of the 2019 Austrian election, discussing the wide range of 'firsts' that characterized them, including the formation of the first oVP-Green coalition government in Austria.