“Communist Party Success in Salzburg Elections: How One Candidate Used Housing as a Key Issue”

Salzburg was, with one exception (2004 to 2013) when the SPÖ provided the governor, an ÖVP country. This will remain the case after the election on Sunday, albeit with bright blue and, above all, red accents. A new state parliament was elected in the region on the border with Bavaria. And what had already been shown in Lower Austria continued: an ÖVP in free fall and the Greens in a slight downward trend. After all, the conservatives lost 7 percentage points in Salzburg on Sunday. The ÖVP is still the strongest party with 30.4 percent. The Greens came to 8.2 percent.

The success of the far-right FPÖ, which increased from 18 to 25 percent compared to 2018, and its rise to become the second strongest force in the country is not surprising. The real sensation came from the Austrian Communist Party: it received 11.6 percent of the vote more or less from the start. This is the first time since 1949 that the party, which has hitherto sunk into the no-nonsense-something range, has made it into the state parliament – ​​with four MPs at the same time. In the city of Salzburg, the KPÖ even got 21 percent.

This success is linked to one name: Kay-Michael Dankl, a charismatic man in his mid-thirties who, judging by his demeanor, would also pass for a Protestant pastor, former Green Party, pragmatist. No old-fashioned revolutionary language, no dreamy social romanticism, no Russia sentimentality: “There are enough Putin fans in Austria, they may be at home in the Chamber of Commerce, perhaps with the oil company OMV, perhaps with the Economic Association – I think the KPÖ, least of all “, so Dankl.

His recipe: problem-focused approach to everyday issues. And that with a method that could definitely be described as a tried and tested political concept from Styria: concentrating on the subject of housing.

In the Styrian capital of Graz, the KPÖ won a whopping 28 percent in the 2021 local council elections and, as the strongest party, has since provided the mayor and, in coalition with the Greens, the city government. The focus of the Styrian KPÖ has been tenant advice for many years – underpinned by its own aid fund, which is fed by contributions from its representatives and party members.

Dankl also organized tenant advice before the elections in Salzburg and contributed a total of 28,000 euros from his salary as a municipal councilor to the aid fund. And that has had an effect: According to voter flow analyzes in the state of Salzburg, the KPÖ was able to win votes from almost all political camps: around a quarter came from the SPÖ, others from the Greens and the liberal Neos, but also from the FPÖ and the ÖVP as well by non-voters.

During the election campaign, Dankl described Salzburg as »beautiful, touristy, expensive«. Because the city, which likes to cultivate the image of a sophisticated Mozart jewel case covered with marzipan, has a real problem with the housing market that has long since affected medium-sized businesses as well. In terms of rents, the city of Salzburg is the second most expensive city in Austria after Innsbruck. In the past year, rental prices have risen by a full 7 percent. Only in the looming election campaign did the ÖVP-led state government introduce a rental price brake. In terms of the cost of living as a whole, Salzburg is also one of the most expensive cities in the country. Last year, the number of bankruptcy proceedings in the state of Salzburg rose by around a quarter, which put it ahead along with Lower Austria, Tyrol and Upper Austria.

The parties in Salzburg have been evaluating the outcome of the election since Monday. Especially the Neos, who only lost a little more than 3 percentage points, but missed the 5 percent hurdle for entering the state parliament. But also the SPÖ, which achieved a historically poor result with 17 percent and lost second place to the FPÖ.

And last but not least the battered ÖVP. On the evening of the election, your governor, Wilfried Haslauer, announced that he wanted to conduct exploratory talks and start coalition talks by the end of the week. But he left it open with whom: A coalition with the FPÖ, with the SPÖ or with the SPÖ and the Greens would be mathematically possible. Haslauer had clearly ruled out cooperation with the KPÖ even before the election. Kay-Michael Dankl is not aiming for government participation anyway, but would like to remain in the opposition.