We have them in the end of September.

Unfortunatly they have very little actual political content and i get the impression, that all parties already in the parliament just want to get the damn inconvenience over.

Currently we have a coalition of SPÖ and ÖVP (social democrats and coservatives), that is traditionally called grand coalition, even if at the last election they did not make such an overwhelming majority together, as they usually have. The coalition manages well, when the goal would be to keep things running with little ado (which is not so bad for instance for ecconomic policy in the general crisis) but they tend to block each other where one of them attempts some reform (we have a lot of that in education policy).

Neither party can offer a coalition, that they are willing to promote as preferrable to the grand coalition and that has a realistic chance for a majority. Coalition speculations are mainly done as scare tactics (that scary coalition could get into power).

Both ruling parties promote general good goals (employment, strong ecconomy, social security) with little specifics, how that should be achieved.

The FPÖ (freedom party, rightwing populists) seems to despair at coming up with new slogans for the same bogeymen, that still gives them attention. This time they came up with roughly "love thy neighbour" combined with "and for us the neighbours are our Austrians" (it works better in German but only slightly). Churches wrote a protest against abusing christian terms for election campains, but overall it seems they did not get all that much attention.

The BZÖ (union for the future of Austria, the less ideological rightwing populists) did not do so well after the death of their founder Jörg Haider. They meandered around a bit, having the problem of having a party, but not really an ideology, lost first the bulk of their Carinthian branch (their strongest regional party) that eventually went back to the FPÖ, and then a couple of backseaters to the Team Stronach (see below). Some people argued that thoose parlamentarians had betrayed their voters, by changing sides, but there i disagree. Everyone with half a brain knew at the last election, that the BZÖ is a party of spineless opportunists, the turncoats did exactly what could be expected of them. The ordered the party to be libertarian now, and got the permission to decide the list for the election all on his own. He only picked people, nobody knowns anything about in the first places. None of the old guard protested overly much. I guess that is because chances that they get into the parliament again are slim and hardly anybody wants to have to do anything with the expected failure. They are basically running a contra-tax campain.

The greens make a campain with puns, that include statements like "less dumb then the other ones" (the german word for dumb they use derives from lambs, so there is also a lamb on the poster). They also mention corruption as reason not to vote for the other parliamentarian parties (where they have indeed a point) but they do little to promote their program.

Then there is the Team Stronach. Frank Stronach is an elderly millionaire, who had started very low and worked himself up in Canada and then returned to Austria to buy and run some businesses here, all in close cooperation with the political caste. In the 90s and early 00s he was famous for hirering ex politican (or politican who had to be parked somewhere between political jobs). Now he runs as a populist against "them up there". His party consists of backseaters and have beens of other parties (mostly BZÖ but also the odd SPÖ or ÖVP members) the BZÖ turncoats he needed to form a parlamentarian club, which mainly means the party now gets money from the state, and to enter the election as parlamentarian party, and some newcomers, who all have in common that they worship Stronach but little else. When Stronach is not in Austria (for tax reasons), things can get chaotic in the party. The program lack specifics and some of it is rather bizzare (each EU country gets it's own Euro, but that is not going back to national currencies) but he somehow stands for the values truth, fairness and transparency and he is so rich already, that he has no need to become corrupt.

Non parlamentarian parties include the communists (where i am now satisfied with their renouncement of soviet style communists, so i consider them in principle electable), that have taken part in every election and since IIRC the 50s never got into the parliament, the Neos (New Austria) a center right party with a libertarian bend and the Pirates, who are basically left libertarian and some smaller parties, that only candidate in some areas. (an other communist party, a fundamentalist christian party, a genreally leftwing party, i propably forgot some)

Personally i am going to vote Pirate this time, not that i expect them to get into the parliament, but i don't think the one seat difference, that my vote may have will make a real difference this time anyway.

On the positive side, i already managed to scavange a biro.

Wait, wait, you have a Pirate party? (Excuse me, I mean pARRty.) Austria is awesome!

Is it sad that I also took away from this that there was a pirate party?

We've got a US Pirate Party too (in some states, anyway)!

I always vote for the Canadian Pirate Party.

Yep. Pirate Party here in Australia too.

I actually like a couple of their platform planks. I'd love to see the length of time on copyrights to lapse sooner. Not sure only 14 years, but 95 is definitely too long.

Everywhere has a Pirate Party. The Swedish Pirate Party (the original one) has MEPs in the European Parliament; the German one has representatives in the Parliaments of three states; the Icelandic party holds three of the 63 seats in the national Parliament and the mayorship of Rekjavik; and Pirate Parties in Spain, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Austria have all elected people to local councils. Here in Czech Republic they have a simulated vote for secondary school students aged 13-18 - the last one of which was won by the Pirate Party (before you get too happy, however, it's worth noting that the neo-Nazi party came second).

Oh wow...this is actually a pretty perfect fit for me and there's a party here in Texas even if they aren't recognized by the PNC at this time.

Overall they are a lot like the Greens in their beginnings.

Started over an issue, the traditional parties do not consider important (yet). Attempts to prevent a rift between ordinary party members to an elite of functionaries. Attach some other issues, that have not been well represented anywhere. And more authentic then smooth and polished, with all visible incompetence, that implies.

The elections are over, we have prelimiary results (without absentee voters), but any substantial changes are not expected.

The governing parties both lost votes and now come together just over 50% of the votes, that coalition can be called grand only out of tradition now. My bet is, that they continue their coalition, but the SPÖ has stated that as their preferrence (and they do not seem to have a plan B), while the ÖVP has not made a definite statement yet. Alternatives for the ÖVP that are mentioned by commentators and forum posters would be ÖVP-FPÖ-Stronach (though you would have to expect that coalition to explode pretty soon) or ÖVP-FPÖ-Neos (though the Neos have stated they don't want a coalition with the FPÖ and i guess taking part in that coalition would kill the party at the next election, so i guess they will not change their mind).

The FPÖ won votes, though i understand less and less why. They became the largest party in Styria, most likely because the local SPÖ-ÖVP goverment there has executed an unpopular plan to unite small counties, in an attempt to reduce administration costs. Many local mayors (SPÖ and ÖVP party members), who are in danger of loosing their positions, have asked the voters not to vote SPÖ and ÖVP.

The Greens like always got an additional percent of the votes. An other 48 elections and they have an absolute majority. Should be the case around 2230.

The BZÖ did not come over the 4% entry boundary and on the long run this likely is the death of that party. Instead the Team Stronach got in, i expect it to fall apart soon though.

The big suprise was, that the Neos got in. Just when it's sister party the FDP got voted out in Germany. I think it's good, that next to the Greens, we now have an second party in the parliement, that is neither an entenched pork barrel party, not a crazy rightwing populist party.

The Pirates unfortunatly made even less, then i expected.

I have a question - if the Austrian government has a left-right coalition, how do they make policy, and is said policy coherent? Do they divvy up the ministries among the parties, so that say, (totally made up example) the Ministry of Labour under an SPO minister pursues a higher minimum wage while the Ministry of Commerce under a OVP minister pursues lower taxes? Do they have to negotiate a compromise acceptable to both parties for every policy? Or do they just not get anything done?

Anything that requires a vote in the parliament requires a compromise. In some issues they have ideologic fights, which means nothing gets done, and if anything gets done it's watered down so much, that it does not really have an effect. Education policy is such a field. In other fields it works pretty well*, ecconomy policy is an example. It helps here, that Austria has a long tradition of social partnership, where both labour and employers lobby negotiate with each other and then together suggest their compromise to the goverment. Sometimes the social partnership has been called a paralell goverment.

Matters that the ministers can decide on their own, are their responsibility. That includes for instance votes in councils of EU ministers**. Also usually the initiative for new laws or changes of laws comes from the ministries. So for instance the ÖVP interior ministry comes up with a suggestion for a law regarding police powers, and then it gets watered down or additional points are included in negotiations between the parties. But it would be unusual if the SPÖ formulates a police law, while the ÖVP has the interior ministry. If they want something, they demand the the ÖVP minister does something about it.

BTW the falling apart of the Team Stronach might already start now. Frank Stronach seems not to be satisfied with the results (5.73%) and shortly before going to Canada has started to replace much personell, including the leaders of the most successfull state branches. The leader of the Carinthian branch is already threatening to split off.

*The finding the compromise part at least. It also means both parties pork barrels are safe, and thoose who are not represented in either party or an associated lobby have a disadvantage.
** Like our ÖVP minister for agriculture and the enviroment voted against an EU ban of a type of pesticides that is supposed to be harnfull to bees, which was very unpopular and has drawn attacks not only from the opposition but also from the SPÖ.