Also yet another dismal failure of the strategy of mainstream centre-right parties co-opting language of populist right. Few have been as accommodating as the ÖVP have been of the FPÖ, yet this is the end result (as it has been pretty much everywhere).
Hard to see Austrian election as good for any party other than the FPÖ. - Governing parties (ÖVP, Greens) lose a third of their vote - Mainstream opposition (SPÖ, NEOS) stagnant - Left challengers (KPÖ, BIER) underperform - FPÖ best result ever, inc. clear lead, and another 1st place for far-right
With today's parliamentary election in Austria, where do the main parties stand on the key issues? Unfortunately, data is unavailable for the Communist and Beer parties who are currently polling just below the Austrian voting system's 4% threshold.
The good thing is, this applies so broadly, you don't know which incompetents I'm subtweeting. Politicians, advisers, strategists, even large parts of the wider ecosystem, are all just lacking any kind of political nous or working understanding of electoral behaviour and are thus doomed to failure.
The ratio of people involved in British politics who think they're really good at politics relative to the number who are actually even okay at politics is off the charts. If it occurred in a vacuum, it'd be fascinating to watch. Unfortunately, it doesn't, so it isn't.
It's one year until the next German federal election, so here's a look at the fundamentals of German politics at the moment. In short, the government is not popular, but nor are nearly all leading opposition politicians. yougov.co.uk/internationa...
Christian Democrats lead in the polls, with half of Germans sad, anxious or worried after far-right gains in state elections
Tbh, I find this sort of missing nuance/detail is too common in party/voting system literature. E.g., how the level of party consolidation (vs fragmentation) in the Netherlands is often ignored, or that the reason micro-party support in UK is lower is they stand in so few seats.
Weirdly undermentioned how Malta's pure two-party system postdates the introduction of STV by 40 years, like that's quite an interesting detail!
One of my most 'want to get yelled at opinions' is that the overvalourisation of the suffragettes relative to the far more effective suffragists has done enormous damage to protest/campaign movements.
Wait and see is key, but I would never be surprised if a German third party with a mid-term polling surge shits the bed by polling day - German Greens have done it twice, the Pirates did it, AfD themselves were well post-peak in 2017 and 2021. Plus, as 2021 and this shows, never count the SPD out.