We have not been monitoring the Austrian election, nor predicting it formally (and correctly) as we have done for the
major elections from Brexit onwards. However we did predict that most OECD countries are moving to a specific model, viz our Euromodel (initially
built after the Dutch Election in March. based on what we saw in Brexit and the US Election):
In essence, it is a move away from the status quo, via a movement to the poles - right and left. How it plays out depends on the country, so far in the northern European and US it has mainly been a major shift to the right and a smaller one to the left. It may well be the reverse for Mediterranean countries, but in northern Europe the model predicts:
1, The main Centre-Right party moves considerably more Right, adopting quite a few of the Far-Right policies and narratives. This ploy may lose some of its more centrist supporters (to who though?) but it prevents the Far Right from taking far more right wing supporters. If it doesn't (Germany) then the Far Right takes a larger share
2. The Centre-Left is decimated, their various "Deplorables" classes - traditional working class voters - go both left and right. This leads to a rise in the Far-Left numbers. The hard to predict move is the Centre left voters who move rightwards, as there is no natural home for them at the moment, and they seem to scatter depending on local conditions.
Thus this is what we expect to see in Austria, we shall be keeping track.
Update - as of c 5pm UK time Sunday, the following early results are being reported by by Austrian broadcasters:
People’s Party 30.2 % (Center Right)
Freedom Party 26.8 % (Right)
Social Democrats 26.3% (Center - Left)
Update - Monday c 5pm - Final results are
People’s Party 31.4 % (Center Right)
Freedom Party 27.4 % (Right)
Social Democrats 26.6% (Center - Left)
The Right Wing Freedom Party has made gains, and the Centre-Right People' Party has moved more right in order to counter them making even greater gains. (Stipulation 1 of the Euromodel). This is also lowest the Social Democrats have polled ever (though it is hardly changed from the last election), but they are now the 3rd party and it appears they will not be a part of the governing coalition for the first time ever and that represents a major drop in their influence (Stipulation 2 of the Euromodel) though they have been saved further ignominy by Austria's Greens (our model says a shift to the far left is the main flow, Austria has confounded this a bit by having a Far left implosion)
There are the usual protests of "dirty campaigning" and "fake news", and this is
a recurring refrain across every election since Brexit. The reality is however, as even former US President Obama has alluded, that there is a
major sociopolitical trend happening across the OECD. There are also headlines of a "shock result" whichh by now is very odd, as we have seen it in elections in country after country over the last year or so, and there will be more to follow unless some major structural changes are made in the EU and even more broadly in the OECD.
Big picture, Democratic OECD countries seem to reaching c 50% of the population who believe the current system is not serving them, and these are voting against the status quo and driving major changes country by country. How and why they do it depends on the country, though there are a lot of common traits and issues. To mitigate this trend however requires these countries and their greater institutions like the EU to make fairly major changes to their status quo structures, which so far we see little sign of - so these "shock" votes will probably continue.