In the local elections in the Austrian state of Vienna, Social Democrat Michael Ludwig, outgoing mayor of the capital, is in the lead, while the far right dives down. This is evident from the first results of the SORA survey institute.
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According to those initial results, SPÖ achieved 41.7 percent (+2.1 percentage points) and the party could choose to form a government with the Conservatives who achieved 18.7 percent, or continue their coalition with the Greens (14, 6 percent) or to opt for the liberals (8.1 percent).
The Social Democrats have already ruled out reaching out to the extreme right, which has been divided and punished after the scandal surrounding Heinz-Christian Strache. In 2019 he was the leader of the right-wing populist FPÖ. That year, footage from a hidden camera came out, shot on the holiday island of Ibiza, showing he was prone to bribery. The right-wing government coalition fell apart and early elections were held.
The FPÖ plunges 23.3 percentage points and would still receive 7.5 percent of the vote. Strache founded a new party, but it would only achieve 3.6 percent. The electoral threshold is 5 percent.
The margin of error in the survey by the SORA institute is 2 percent.
Vienna is the capital of Austria, but also one of the country’s nine federal states (länder). The voters had to elect a new city council and the mayors of the 23 arrondissements. The final results will follow on Monday.
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