Electoral Panorama / Panorama Electoral

Contrary to widespread expectations, Jörg Haider's right-wing Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) narrowly cleared the four percent threshold in last Sunday's parliamentary election in Austria, which entitled his party to eight mandates in the 183-seat National Council.

However, definitive provisional returns show the Alliance had a strong showing in just a single state: Carinthia, presently ruled by none other than Haider himself. The BZÖ finished second there (the Social Democrats carried the state) and polled an impressive 25.4% of the vote, displacing the ruling Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) to an ignominious third place.

Haider focused on his own state in an attempt to bypass the four percent barrier by winning a direct mandate in one of the state's regional multi-member constituencies. As it was, he narrowly missed this objective: the Alliance failed to reach the statewide Hare quota of 24,074 votes in every one of Carinthia's four constituencies, although in regional district 2D (Carinthia East) the BZÖ fell short by a mere 128 votes. However, in the end this became a moot point, as the Alliance vote in Carinthia lifted the party's nationwide share of the vote to 4.2% - just above the four percent election threshold.

That said, in the rest of Austria the BZÖ fared disastrously, polling just 2.6% of the vote. In fact, Haider's party trailed independent MEP Hans-Peter Martin's list outside Carinthia.