Austrian Election – Review
So, a quick review of my predictions (with all votes in and only postal ballots left to be counted).
As I mentioned below, it was hard to predict the final outcome as no polls were published in the last week. However, I used my usual methodology and it wasn’t too bad at all.
All the ballots cast on Sunday have been counted and a projection has been made for the postal votes that will be counted by Thursday. This table below shows the percentage votes, the polling firms’ final predictions, my prediction and for each of those predictions the error. The lower the error, the better the prediction.
|  | SPÖ | ÖVP | FPÖ | Greens | Stronach | BZÖ | Neos | Error |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Result | 26.6 | 24 | 20.7 | 12.2 | 5.8 | 3.6 | 5.2 | |
| Peter Ould | 26.6 | 22.3 | 22.0 | 13.4 | 5.4 | 3.8 | 4.3 | 5.7 |
| Gallup | 27 | 23 | 21 | 14 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 5.5 |
| OGM | 27 | 22 | 21 | 14 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 6.3 |
| Market | 26 | 23 | 19 | 15 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 9.9 |
| Karmasin | 27 | 23 | 21 | 14 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 8.5 |
| Hajek | 27 | 23 | 20 | 15 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 8.9 |
| Meinungsraum | 28 | 24 | 19 | 15 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 9.9 |
The main error made by most polling firms was to overstate both the Greens and Team Stronach. That said, there was an obvious swing away from both parties in the last ten days and I managed to capture that in my analysis.
The only polling firm that beat me was Gallup and even then only by a fraction (0.2). Not too bad….
As to what will happen in Austria now, most commentators think the Grand Coalition between SPÖ and ÖVP will continue, but I wonder whether the ÖVP leader Spindelegger wants to be Chancellor so much that he is prepared to go into a right-wing coalition with the FPÖ and Team Stronach. If that happens you heard it here first!
It is significant that Spindelegger was not willing, during the campaign, to rule out a coalition with the FPÖ. I am very sorry to say that there are even some Christians (both Catholic and Evangelical) who are in favor of a coalition ÖVP-FPÖ-Stronach or ÖVP-FPÖ-NEOS, including candidate Gudrun Kugler who received two preference votes from me (one on the federal list, one on the Vienna provincial list).
The bottom line is that politicians are in it for the power. If you’re fighting an election in order to run the country, why would you turn down an opportunity to run the country?