Parliament of Lower Austria

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Parliament of Lower Austria
logo Country house in St. Pölten
logo Country house in St. Pölten
Basic data
Seat: Country house in St. Pölten
Legislative period : five years
First session: 1861 and 1920
MPs: 56
Current legislative period
Last choice: January 28, 2018
Next choice: 2023
Chair: State Parliament President Karl Wilfing ( ÖVP )
      
Distribution of seats: Proportional government (49)
  • ÖVP 29
  • SPÖ 13
  • FPÖ 7
    • Opposition (7)
  • GREEN 3
  • NEOS 3
  • Non-attached 1
    		•
    Website
    noe-landtag.gv.at
    The Lower Austrian country house in Vienna (today Palais Niederösterreich ) was the seat of the state parliament until 1997
    The state parliament of Lower Austria has been located in St. Pölten since 1997 (east side of the Landhausviertel , in the background the Klangturm )
    Lower Austrian state ship

    The Landtag of Lower Austria is the Landtag of the Austrian state of Lower Austria . He exercises the state legislation ( legislature ). The seat of the state parliament is in St. Pölten in the Landhausviertel .

    The Lower Austrian Landtag consists of 56 members . The electoral term lasts five years. Elections are made in accordance with the Lower Austrian Landtag election regulations 1992. In Lower Austria there are 21 constituencies that correspond to the political districts . The statutory cities belong to the district of the same name or the surrounding district. The number of MPs corresponds to the number of inhabitants.

    In order to be eligible to stand as a candidate, a candidate must be 18 years of age (no later than the day of the election) and have at least 50 declarations of consent. He is nominated by a political party. In order to enter the state parliament, a party must reach the four percent hurdle or obtain a mandate in an electoral district .

    history

    The Lower Austrian Landtag goes back to the medieval assemblies of estates, the so-called Landtaidinge . These were the prelate class (clerical nobility), the gentry class (high secular nobility), the knight class (lower secular nobility) and the state of the princely cities and markets . In particular, the peasant class was not represented, thus the largest part of the population. At first the estates met irregularly; only at the turn of the modern era did they institutionalize themselves in the state parliament; In 1513 a building in what is now Vienna's Herrengasse, today known as the Palais Niederösterreich , was purchased, where the state parliament met until 1997.

    The power of the state estates, which was still great in the 16th century, was pushed back further and further in the age of absolutism , but the state parliament was never abolished. His last meeting in the old form took place on March 13, 1848 - the presentation of a petition to the Lower Austrian estates triggered the March Revolution .

    The constitutions and draft constitution for the following years regularly provided for a state parliament for Lower Austria, but it only became reality in 1861 with the February patent . According to the "Regional Order for the Archduchy of Austria under the Enns" enacted with this patent and valid until 1918, the Landtag should consist of 66 members, namely: the Archbishop of Vienna , the Bishop of St. Pölten , the Rector of the University of Vienna , also 15 representatives from large estates, 28 representatives from cities and markets as well as from the chambers of commerce and industry and from 20 representatives from rural communities. As a result of this curia system , the right to vote was extremely unequal and, due to an existing census for the cities and rural communities, was also limited to about 7% of the population. A remarkable step backwards took place in 1888 with the express elimination of the previously valid women's right to vote .

    On March 20, 1919, a new system of electoral law was enacted which introduced the general, equal, direct and secret right to vote for all citizens of Lower Austria, regardless of gender. For Vienna, which at that time still belonged to Lower Austria, 68 of the 120 mandates were planned. The first election under this suffrage took place on May 4, 1919 and resulted in an absolute majority for the Social Democratic Labor Party .

    In 1919/20, tendencies already expressed during the monarchy to separate Vienna from Lower Austria intensified. While the monarchy thought of making Vienna a city directly under the Empire , which would only be subordinate to the Imperial and Royal Government for Cisleithanien , it was now a matter of making Vienna a federal state. To the other six federal states that existed at that time, a state of Lower Austria, including Vienna, seemed to be too overpowering partners in the federalism sought, as around half of all Austrians lived in this state. Moreover, Lower Austrian peasants did not want to allow themselves to be ruled by social democratic Viennese, and social democratic Viennese did not want to be hindered by conservative Lower Austrians in left politics.

    Therefore, in the Austrian Federal Constitution, agreed by the grand coalition and passed by the Constituent National Assembly on October 1, 1920, the separation of Vienna and Lower Austria was made. On the day the Federal Constitutional Law came into force , on November 10, 1920, the Vienna City Council met for the first time as the Vienna State Parliament and passed the Vienna City Constitution , which came into force on November 18, 1920. The new Lower Austria excluding Vienna passed the constitution of the state of Lower Austria on November 30, 1920.

    In order to coordinate the division of the previous state property, the joint Lower Austrian state parliament, divided if necessary into the two curiae Vienna and Lower Austria-Land , was formally retained until the end of 1921, but had next to nothing to decide, as the leading politicians of the two new states Legally did not want to maintain common ground even partially. The abolition of the remaining common ground was decided in Vienna and Lower Austria by their new legislative bodies at the end of 1921 (see: Separation Act ).

    From January 1, 1922, the two new federal states were completely separate from each other. It was agreed, however, that the seat of the Lower Austrian state parliament and the Lower Austrian state government would remain in the Landhaus in Vienna; Half of Vienna's share of the building would only come into play if the Landtag moved out of the country house. (Half of Vienna's ownership was replaced by Lower Austria in the 1990s.)

    The state parliament had 60 members until 1932, who were elected in four constituencies. In 1932 the electoral law was reformed and the number of MPs was reduced to 56, while the number of constituencies was increased to eight to make it more difficult for smaller parties, especially the NSDAP , to enter .

    In 1933, the Dollfuss government switched off the National Council , but the Christian Social and Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) jointly passed the prohibition law for the NSDAP in the Lower Austrian state parliament . On February 12, 1934, the Dollfuss dictatorship banned Austrian social democracy, thereby depriving the Lower Austrian state parliament of its democratic basis. On July 1, 1934, the state parliament was dictatorially converted into a state parliament, which consisted of 36 mandataries sent by the professions .

    With the "Anschluss" in 1938 , the state parliament was dissolved.

    After the end of the Second World War , state laws from April 27, 1945 were initially passed by the provisional state government (see state government Figl I and state government Reither III ); analogous to this, the provisional state government Renner 1945 took place on November 25, 1945, and on December 12, the state parliament was reconstituted and on the same day elected the state government Reither IV as the first elected of the Second Republic.

    As a result of the vote on a separate state capital, the state parliament moved to St. Pölten on May 21, 1997. As a result, the building in Vienna, which had been called a country house for centuries, was renamed “ Palais Niederösterreich ” in order to facilitate the use of the building for purposes that were not directly political.

    President of the Landtag of the new Province of Lower Austria in the First Republic

    The following persons held office as first presidents:

    Second presidents during this period were;

    The following politicians were in office as third presidents:

    President of the Landtag in the Second Republic

    The following persons held office as first presidents:

    The following persons held office as second presidents:

    The following persons held office as third presidents:

    Current allocation of seats

    According to the election result of the election of January 28, 2018, the ÖVP has 29 (-1), the SPÖ 13 (± 0), the FPÖ 8 (+4), the Greens 3 (-1) seats and the NEOS 3 (+3 ) Mandates; see also state election in Lower Austria 2018 .

    See also

    literature

    • Biographical manual of the Lower Austrian Parliament and the Lower Austrian State Government 1921-1995, 1995
    • Otto Krause: Biographical Handbook of the Lower Austrian Parliament 1861 - 1921, digitized

    Web links

    Commons : The Landhaus in St. Pölten  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
    Commons : The former country house and today's Palais Niederösterreich  - collection of images, videos and audio files

    Individual evidence

    1. ↑ LGBl. F. Lower Austria State No. 1/1920
    2. ^ The Presidents of the Landtag 1921-1938 . Retrieved June 23, 2018.
    3. ↑ a b c The Presidents of the State Parliament since 1945 . Retrieved June 23, 2018.