The collection of signatures for the National Council elections on September 29 began on Tuesday. Parties or groups that want to stand as candidates and that cannot count on the support of three members of the National Council must collect statements of support from this “deadline date”. The best chances are attributed to the KPÖ and the Beer Party. Beer Party leader Dominik Wlazny said on Tuesday that he was confident that the required 2,600 would be collected quickly.
When he signed a declaration of support for his party in a magistrate’s court not far from Vienna’s Mariahilferstrasse on Tuesday morning, he criticized the procedure. “It has not always been made easy for us”, for example in Klosterneuburg you need an appointment. The goal of his party is of course to get into the National Council. The party leader has no doubt that the Beer Party will be on the ballot. In the 2022 federal presidential elections, Wlazny was the first to hand over the necessary 6,000 declarations of support to the federal electoral authority. The party wants to present its first content on Thursday.
As for collecting statements of support, parties that want to run for office must collect between 100 and 500 statements of support per state. You have until 2 August (5 p.m.) to do this. In order to compete throughout Austria, a list needs a total of 2,600 signatures.
KPÖ with good chances to come to power
The Communist Party has participated in all National Council elections to date, but was only actually represented in the National Council between 1945 and 1959. Back then, it achieved results of around five percent. In the last National Council elections in 2019, the CPÖ received 0.69 percent of the vote. The country did considerably better in this year’s EU elections, with the 2.96 percent achieved being the best national result since 1962.
The communists have previously gained importance at a regional level, especially in Styria, where they have had seats in the state parliament since 2005 and Elke Kahr has even been mayor of the state capital Graz since 2021. Last year, the KPÖ also joined the state parliament in Salzburg, and in Innsbruck the KPÖ has been represented in the city council since April. The leading candidate for the National Council elections is federal spokesman Tobias Schweiger. The 34-year-old from Graz was once active in the Young Greens, co-founded Young Left in 2017 and then became active in the KPÖ.
Small parties are looking for signatures
Numerous groups such as ‘Change’, the list of ex-Green Party leader Madeleine Petrovic, the vaccination-critical MFG (Human Freedom and Fundamental Rights), the ‘SERVUS party’ founded by a Carinthian entrepreneur, the electoral alliance ‘The Yellows’, ‘Independent Austria (DUO)’, the ‘Democratic Alternative’, the ‘Beste Oostenrijk’ list and the ‘GAZA list’ have announced that they want to collect signatures.
The “YES TO AUSTRIA” list around the former Secretary General of the BZÖ, Christian Ebner, is also campaigning for votes. As he announced in a broadcast on Tuesday, he wants to make his list effective in the elections for the National Council in order to promote “the exit from the EU asylum policy and the reintroduction of national border protection”. He also wants to campaign for lower taxes and the “fight against social abuse”.
The election campaign spending ceiling also comes into effect on Tuesday. From today until the election, parties are not allowed to spend more than 8.66 million euros on the election campaign. If the limit is exceeded, there are severe sanctions. Wlazny jokingly said: “We will not reach almost nine million” – which would be quite unusual for a young party with manageable resources.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
