
A new regional parliament will be elected in Styria on Sunday. The first polling stations opened at 6:30 AM. A total of 941,509 Styrians are eligible to vote. Nine parties are listed on the ballot, six of them running nationwide. Voting will close at 4:00 PM, and a first projection is expected shortly after. Historically, either the ÖVP (Austrian People’s Party) or SPÖ (Social Democratic Party of Austria) have held the position of governor in Styria. According to recent polls, however, the FPÖ (Freedom Party of Austria) now has the best chance of coming in first.
The first polling station opened at 6:30 AM in Mooskirchen, southwest of Graz, and another opened at 6:45 AM in Arnfels in the Leibnitz district. Most polling stations will follow suit at 7:00 AM and 8:00 AM. In Graz, the state capital, almost all polling stations will be open from 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM, allowing the longest voting time in the afternoon.
Some polling stations, like those in the Volkshilfe Senior Citizens’ Center in East Styria’s Weiz, will open only at 10:00 AM. At the same time, other polling stations, such as in the Generations Park in Zeltweg, will have already closed. Since polling stations in Graz close at 4:00 PM, and all votes must then be counted, the provisional results are expected to be available only around 9:00 PM, according to the election authority.
In the latest polls, as well as in the regional results from the national elections at the end of September, the FPÖ was clearly in first place in Styria. In the (few) surveys, the Freedom Party reached over 30 percent, with a lead of up to six percentage points over the ÖVP. The People’s Party, on the other hand, is expected to face significant losses and could lose the governor’s seat, as it did in 2005 under Waltraud Klasnic.
The SPÖ showed less movement in the polls compared to the ÖVP and FPÖ, but generally ranked third, behind both the ÖVP and FPÖ. The red top candidate, Anton Lang, still hopes for a three-way race and aims to win, alongside ÖVP leader Christopher Drexler and FPÖ’s Mario Kunasek. The Greens, according to the polls, are expected to lose significantly after their record result in 2019, and will likely compete with NEOS and KPÖ for fourth place. The smaller parties all have a good chance of retaining their seats in the regional parliament.
In the 2019 regional election, the ÖVP, then under Hermann Schützenhöfer, achieved a resounding victory with 36.05 percent. His successor, Drexler, aims to defend this first place. The previously dominant SPÖ dropped by 6.27 percentage points to 23.02 percent in 2019, which led to the resignation of their top candidate, Michael Schickhofer. He was succeeded by Anton Lang, who, like Drexler, is running for the first time as a top candidate. In 2019, the FPÖ, following the Ibiza scandal, lost 9.27 percentage points, falling to 17.49 percent. The Greens reached 12.08 percent in 2019, their best result to date. The KPÖ, which has been in the regional parliament since 2005, gained 1.77 percentage points to reach 5.99 percent, and NEOS gained 2.73 percentage points to reach 5.37 percent. Voter turnout in 2019 was 63.46 percent. The seat distribution in the 48-member regional parliament was as follows: ÖVP 18, SPÖ 12, FPÖ 8, Greens 6, and both KPÖ and NEOS with 2 seats each.