Municipal council and mayoral elections in Vorarlberg 2015
As part of the municipal council and mayoral elections in Vorarlberg 2015 , the municipal representative bodies of all 96 municipalities in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg were newly elected. The main election date for the municipal council elections and the mayor direct elections was March 15, 2015, the runoff elections for the mayoral election were held on March 29, 2015.
Starting position
In the context of the municipal council elections, a total of 1806 mandataries had to be elected to the municipal councils across the country, while 132 mayoral candidates ran nationwide in the direct mayor elections. In all 96 municipalities of Vorarlberg the municipal council was elected on March 15th, but only in 60 of them a direct mayor election took place at the same time. The reason for this is that in some municipalities there were no separate mayor candidacies or an electoral system was provided that did not allow direct mayor elections (see section electoral systems ). There were 289,602 eligible voters in all of Vorarlberg, significantly more than in the 2014 state elections , which had taken place six months earlier.
After the 2010 elections, 92 out of 96 municipalities had mayors who belonged to the Vorarlberg People's Party or who were attributed to it by the media and political scientists. In almost all of these communities, the People's Party resumed in 2015, but only in 36 communities actually under the name "People's Party". The Vorarlberg Freedom Party ran in 32 municipalities, the SPÖ Vorarlberg in 26, the Greens Vorarlberg in 23 municipalities. The NEOS , which ran for the first time in municipal elections in Vorarlberg, only ran for candidates in four municipalities.
Suffrage
For the election of the municipal council and the mayor in 2015, who was actively eligible to vote
- Be at least 16 years old on election day, March 15, 2015,
- his main residence at the reference date, 29 December 2014 had in Vorarlberg and the Austrian citizenship or the citizenship of a Member State of the European Union had
- and was not excluded from the right to vote (is explicitly pronounced by the court in the case of certain criminal convictions in individual cases or in the case of a stay of less than one year if it is obvious that this is only temporary).
Every Vorarlberg or Union citizen who met the requirements of the right to vote and was at least 18 years old on election day could be elected to the municipal council. However, only a citizen of the municipality, i.e. an Austrian citizen with main residence in the respective municipality, could be elected mayor of a municipality .
Electoral systems
In most municipalities in the country, the municipal council was elected by list and the mayor was elected directly. In addition, there were two further electoral procedures as Vorarlberger Unikum, which were used in special cases.
- List election with direct mayor election
In the list election with direct mayor election, parties or free lists submit nominations for the municipal council and for the office of mayor. The voters can then cast one vote for a list or party at the municipal council and one vote for the election of the mayor. In addition, five preferential votes can be given to the chosen list of the municipal council. In the mayoral election, the voters do not have to forcibly give their vote to the candidate from the list or party elected by the municipal council ( vote splitting ).
The possibility of direct election of the mayor has only existed in Vorarlberg since the amendment to the electoral law of 1999. It was used for the first time in the municipal council and mayoral elections in 2000 out of 96, the election carried out according to this system.
- List selection (with area code)
When voting on lists, voters choose the new local council from pre-prepared lists (often referred to as "unit" or "community lists"). This voting system is often used in conjunction with an area code. Either an empty ballot is sent to all eligible voters in the municipality, on which they can enter those people who in their opinion should appear on the list, or the parties send their lists to the citizens, who then rank them in advance of the election can make within this. In the subsequent election, those entitled to vote again have the opportunity to change their ranking on the lists by giving preferential votes. In the case of pure list voting, the members of the newly elected municipal council then determine the mayor of the municipality from among their number.
In the run-up to the municipal council elections in 2015, lawyers first expressed concerns about the democratic legitimation of the pre-election practice common in Vorarlberg. In the 2015 elections, the pure list voting system without direct mayor election was used in 20 municipalities.
- Majority vote
In principle, the municipal council in Vorarlberg is to be carried out according to proportional representation. If, however, no party stands for election in a municipality six weeks before the election day at the latest, the election can be carried out as a majority vote. Some, especially smaller, municipalities practice so-called majority voting, in which each eligible voter can indicate a maximum of twice as many names (of passive voters in this municipality ) as there are places in the municipal council. Those with the highest number of votes are then considered elected. The newly elected community representatives then elect the new mayor from among their number in their first meeting.
This procedure, which is used in Vorarlberg as the only Austrian federal state, is laid down in the 9th section of the Vorarlberg Municipal Election Act under the name “Elections to the municipal council in the absence of nominations”. The majority vote was overturned as unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court in 1984 , but reintroduced in 2000 following an amendment to the Federal Constitutional Law. In 2015, the municipal council in 16 Vorarlberg municipalities was elected using the majority voting system.
Results
The state election authority did not publish any official nationwide party results, but a result can be assumed based on a calculation by the ÖVP (see diagram). The party results contain the results achieved by party-affiliated lists. A list is accepted as affiliated with the party if the top candidates on this list include several prominent party members or if this party is massively supported by the respective state party. In many small communities, unit lists close to the ÖVP traditionally appear.
A clear trend in the 2015 municipal council elections was that the Vorarlberg People's Party lost votes in the larger municipalities and cities of the state, especially in the Rhine Valley. Absolute majorities in the largest communities became an exception. In Hohenems , the FPÖ even overtook the ÖVP (which had previously ruled without an absolute majority) and became the strongest force. FPÖ top candidate Dieter Egger forced the ÖVP mayor Richard Amann in Hohenems in the runoff election for the office of mayor. While the ÖVP mayors of the district capitals of Bregenz, Dornbirn and Feldkirch were confirmed in office in the first ballot, the Mayor of Bludenz Josef Katzenmayer also had to go to the runoff election against the SPÖ challenger Mario Leiter. The third mayor runoff election was necessary in Hörbranz , where ÖVP mayor Karl Hehle ran against Josef Siebmacher from the FPÖ. In all three mayor runoff elections, however, the incumbents and ÖVP candidates were ultimately able to prevail.
There was a change of mayor in several municipalities as part of the direct election of mayors. In St. Gallenkirch , Josef Lechtaler from the SPÖ replaced the previous mayor Ewald Tschanhenz from the ÖVP and thus won a second mayor's post for the SPÖ in Vorarlberg. In the Bregenzerwald community of Bezau , Gerhard Steurer was elected from the Bezau list to succeed his party colleague Georg Fröwis. The electoral population of Bildstein elected Judith Schilling-Grabher from the Bildsteiner list for the first time a woman as mayor. In the Montafon municipality of Schruns , Jürgen Kuster replaced his ÖVP party colleague Karl Hueber as mayor, in Stallehr Matthias Luger was newly elected from the list for Stallehr. There was also a change at the top in the communities of St. Anton im Montafon , where Raimund Schuler was elected mayor, and Düns , where Gerold Mähr was the new head of the community.
Election challenges and revocations
In the two mayor run-off elections in Bludenz and Hohenems, the defeated candidates from the SPÖ and the FPÖ complained that the issue of voting cards had been improper or incorrect. The SPÖ in Bludenz and the FPÖ in Hohenems therefore challenged the very narrow election results of the mayor's runoff elections in these two cities at the Constitutional Court .
In November 2015, the Constitutional Court confirmed irregularities in applying for and issuing voting cards in Hohenems and Bludenz. The mayor's runoff elections had to be repeated in these two cities according to the decision of the VfGH. As a result, the repeat date for both elections was set by the state electoral authority as December 20, 2015. When the mayoral election was repeated in Hohenems, challenger Dieter Egger from the FPÖ won 55.75 percent of the vote. The previous incumbent Richard Amann (ÖVP) achieved 44.25 percent and announced his withdrawal from politics. In Bludenz, incumbent Josef Katzenmayer received 54.56 percent of the votes from the ÖVP and thus remained mayor. His challenger Mario Leiter (SPÖ) received 45.44 percent of the vote.
Web links
- General information on the municipal elections from the Vorarlberg regional government office.
- Results of the municipal council and mayoral elections 2015 on the website of the state election authority.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jutta Berger : Vorarlberg: After the carnival, the municipal election . Article on derStandard.at of February 18, 2015, accessed on February 18, 2015.
- ↑ a b c Candidate lists and candidates for the direct mayor election for the 2015 municipal elections on the Vorarlberg website ( Memento from October 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Concerns about Vorarlberg pre-election practice . Article on vorarlberg.ORF.at from March 6, 2015, accessed on February 21, 2016.
- ^ A b Jutta Berger : People's party loses in Vorarlberg cities . Article on derStandard.at from March 15, 2015, accessed on March 23, 2015.
- ↑ The new mayor faces . Article on vorarlberg.ORF.at from March 15, 2015, accessed on March 25, 2015.
- ↑ Appeals against the election reached the Constitutional Court . Article on vorarlberg.ORF.at of April 27, 2015, accessed on November 23, 2015.
- ↑ Redial in Hohenems and Bludenz . Article on vorarlberg.ORF.at from November 23, 2015, accessed on November 23, 2015.
- ↑ Elections before Christmas . Article on vorarlberg.ORF.at of November 24, 2015, accessed on November 24, 2015.
- ^ Blue smoke in Hohenems: Egger triumphs . Article on vorarlberg.orf.at from December 20, 2015, accessed on December 20, 2015.
