Election of the Federal President in Austria in 1951

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Heinrich Gleißner 1951
Theodor Körner, Mayor's Gallery of the Vienna City Hall (excerpt)

The federal presidential election in Austria in 1951 was the first popular election of an Austrian head of state . The first ballot took place on May 6, 1951 and resulted in a tight lead by Heinrich Gleißner ( ÖVP ) before Theodor Körner ( SPÖ ). The runoff election between these two strongest candidates on May 27, 1951 was won by Körner.

prehistory

After the end of the Second World War , the newly elected National Council on December 19, 1945 passed a constitutional law that was supposed to allow the Federal Constitutional Law in the version of 1929 to come into force again. However, this was rejected by the Allied Council . For this reason, the first election of a head of state after the end of the war by the National Assembly took place . This was Karl Renner , who was previously State Chancellor of the Provisional State Government. Renner was elected Federal President on December 20, 1945 and remained so until his death on December 31, 1950. In the meantime, the constitution of 1929 had been put back into force, which is why the next election of the head of state could take place by the electorate.

Candidates and results of the ballot

First ballot

candidate valid votes proportion of
Heinrich Gleißner ( ÖVP ) 1,725,451 40.1%
Theodor Körner ( SPÖ ) 1,682,881 39.2%
Burghard Breitner (independent, proposal by VdU ) 622.501 15.4%
Gottlieb Fiala ( KPÖ ) 219,969 5.1%
Johannes Ude (independent) 5,413 0.1%
Ludovica Hainisch-Marchet (independent) 2.132 0.05%

Of 4,513,597 eligible voters, 4,370,574 cast their votes (with general compulsory voting), which results in a turnout of 96.8%. 72,227 votes were considered invalid, which corresponds to 1.65% of the votes cast.

Second ballot

candidate valid votes proportion of
Theodor Körner 2,178,631 52.1%
Heinrich Gleißner 2,006,322 47.9%

Of 4,513,597 eligible voters, 4,373,194 cast their votes, which results in a turnout of 96.9%. 188,241 votes were considered invalid, which corresponds to 4.3% of the votes cast.

Swearing in

Theodor Körner was sworn in before the Federal Assembly on June 21, 1951 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ bmi.gv.at - Federal President Election - Historical Review
  2. ↑ a b c d Federal Ministry of the Interior: Federal President Election 1951 ( PDF , 3.7 MB)