Country	Austria
Name english	Austrian People's Party
Name native	Österreichische Volkspartei
Logo
Leader	Josef Pröll
Foundation	1893 (Christian Social Party) April 17, 1945 (ÖVP)
Headquarters	Lichtenfelsgasse 7 A-1010 Vienna
Ideology	Conservatism, Christian democracy
Position	Centre-right
Religion	Roman Catholicism
International	International Democrat Union
European	European People's Party
Europarl	European People's Party
Colours	Black
Website	http://www.oevp.at
Colorcode
Seats1 title	National Council:
Seats1
Seats2 title	Federal Council:
Seats2
Seats3 title	European Parliament:
Seats3

The Austrian People's Party (, or ÖVP) is a Christian democratic and conservative party in Austria. A successor to Austrian Christian Social Party of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it is similar to the Christian Democratic Union of Germany in terms of ideology. The People's Party was founded immediately following the reestablishment of the Federal Republic of Austria in 1945 and has been one of the two largest political parties in Austria ever since.

Platform

The Austrian People's Party represents conservatism, running on a platform of respect for traditions and stability of social order. In particular, it is expressly not interested in strengthening Austria's incomplete separation of church and state and appears to be somewhat sceptical of affirmative action, rights for sexual minorities, and other forms of real or perceived social engineering. For most of its existence, the People's Party has explicitly defined itself as Catholic and anti-socialist; the ideal of subsidiarity as defined by the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno is generally considered one of the historical cornerstones of its agenda.

For the first election after World War II, ÖVP presented itself as the Austrian Party („die österreichische Partei“), was decidedly anti-Marxist and regarded itself as the Party of the Middle („Partei der Mitte“). The ÖVP held permanently power either alone or in so-called Black-Red coalition with the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) until year 1970, when the Social Democrats formed their own minority government with the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). The ÖVP economic policies during the era can be described as upholding a social market economy.

Nowadays, with regard to economic policy, the Austrian People's Party is advocating liberalisation of economy, endorsing the reduction of Austria's relatively large public sector, welfare reform, and general deregulation. With regard to foreign affairs, it strongly supports European integration. Over the last two decades, the People's Party has also adopted a more environmentalist stance than other similar conservative parties.

Demographics

The Austrian People's Party is popular mainly amongst white-collar workers, large and small business owners, and farmers. In particular, it is backed by a majority of Austria's civil servants, a remarkably large and influential group due to the size and scope of Austria's government bureaucracy. Austria's blue-collar workers, by comparison, tend to endorse the Social Democratic Party and the Freedom Party. All in all, People's Party supporters are comparatively educated and affluent. As its supporters like to point out, the People's Party enjoys growing popularity with younger voters according to a number of recent public opinion polls.

History

The Austrian People's Party is the successor of the Christian Social Party, a staunchly conservative movement founded in 1893 by Karl Lueger, mayor of Vienna and highly controversial right-wing populist. Most of the members of the Austrian People's party during its founding belonged to the former Fatherland Front, which was led by Engelbert Dollfuss, also a member of the Christian Social Party before the Anschluss. In its present form, the People's Party was established immediately after the restoration of Austria's independence in 1945; it has been represented in both the Federal Assembly ever since. In terms of Federal Assembly seats, the People's Party has consistently been the strongest or second-strongest party; as such, it has led or at least been a partner in most Austria's federal cabinets.

States

At the state level, the People's Party has long dominated the rural states of Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Tyrol, and Vorarlberg. It is less popular in the city state of Vienna and in the rural but less strongly Catholic states of Burgenland and Carinthia. In 2004 it lost its plurality in the State of Salzburg, where they kept its result in seats (14) in 2009 and in 2005 in Styria for the first time. All things considered, the People's Party would be near-incontestably dominating Austrian politics if not for the comparatively populous and solidly social democratic metropolis of Vienna.

Federal Government

After the Austrian legislative election, 1999, the People's Party formed in 2000 a coalition government with the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria of its then-leader Jörg Haider. This caused widespread outrage in Europe, and fourteen members of the European Union imposed informal diplomatic sanctions against Austria's federal administration. A few months later, these sanctions were dropped as a result of a fact-finding mission by three former European prime ministers, the so-called "three wise men". In November 2002, general elections resulted in a landslide victory (42.27% of the vote) for the People's Party under the leadership of Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel. Haider's Freedom Party, which in 1999 was slightly stronger than Schüssel's party, was reduced to 10.16% of the vote. In the 2006 elections the People's Party were defeated and after much negotiations agreed to become part of a coalition government with the Social Democratic Party of Austria, with new Party Chairman Wilhelm Molterer as Finance Minister and Vice-Chancellor under Social Democrat Alfred Gusenbauer, who became Chancellor.

In the recent past, the People’s Party had to face increasing criticism among the public opinion, due to their persistence on their own point-of-view in several political topics (e.g. in matters of reforming the Austrian school system) This apparent unwillingness to negotiate or to make compromises within the coalition has caused political satire both among journalists and opponents.

Chairpersons since 1945

The chart below shows a timeline of the Christian Democratic chairpersons and the Chancellors of Austria. The left black bar shows all the chairpersons (Bundesparteiobleute, abbreviated as "CP") of the ÖVP party, and the right bar shows the corresponding make-up of the Austrian government at that time. The red (SPÖ) and black (ÖVP) colours correspond to which party led the federal government (Bundesregierung, abbreviated as "Govern."). The last names of the respective chancellors are shown, the Roman numeral stands for the cabinets.

European Election 2009

The ÖVP was the winner of the 2009 election for the European Parliament in Austria. They had 846,709 votes (+28,993), a 30.0% (−2.7%) and 6 seats, the same they had.

ImageSize = width:400 height:530 PlotArea = width:350 height:450 left:50 bottom:50 Legend = columns:3 left:50 top:25 columnwidth:50

DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:1945 till:2009 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5 start:1945

# there is no automatic collision detection, # so shift texts up or down manually to avoid overlap

Colors= id:ÖVP value:gray(0.25) legend:ÖVP id:SPÖ value:red legend:SPÖ # id:FPÖ value:blue legend:FPÖ

Define $dx = 25 # shift text to right side of bar Define $dy = -4 # adjust height

PlotData=

bar:CP color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:S

from:1945 till:1945 shift:($dx,1) color:ÖVP text:Leopold Kunschak from:1945 till:1952 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Leopold Figl from:1952 till:1960 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Julius Raab from:1960 till:1963 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Alfons Gorbach from:1963 till:1970 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Josef Klaus from:1970 till:1971 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Hermann Withalm from:1971 till:1975 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Karl Schleinzer from:1975 till:1979 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Josef Taus from:1979 till:1989 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Alois Mock from:1989 till:1991 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Josef Riegler from:1991 till:1995 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Erhard Busek from:1995 till:2007 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Wolfgang Schüssel from:2007 till:2008 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Wilhelm Molterer from:2008 till:end shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Josef Pröll

bar:Govern. color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7

from:1945 till:1946 shift:($dx,-2) color:SPÖ text:Renner from:1946 till:1949 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Figl I from:1949 till:1952 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Figl II from:1952 till:1953 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Figl III from:1953 till:1956 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Raab I from:1956 till:1959 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Raab II from:1959 till:1960 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Raab III from:1960 till:1961 shift:($dx,-2) color:ÖVP text:Raab IV from:1961 till:1963 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Gorbach I from:1963 till:1964 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Gorbach II from:1964 till:1966 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Klaus I from:1966 till:1970 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Klaus II from:1970 till:1971 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Kreisky I from:1971 till:1975 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Kreisky II from:1975 till:1979 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Kreisky III from:1979 till:1983 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Kreisky IV from:1983 till:1986 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Sinowatz from:1986 till:1987 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky I from:1987 till:1990 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky II from:1990 till:1994 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky III from:1994 till:1996 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky IV from:1996 till:1997 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Vranitzky V from:1997 till:2000 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Klima from:2000 till:2003 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Schüssel I from:2003 till:2007 shift:($dx,$dy) color:ÖVP text:Schüssel II from:2007 till:2008 shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Gusenbauer from:2008 till:end shift:($dx,$dy) color:SPÖ text:Faymann

References

External links

Austrian People's Party (official site)

Austrian People's Party Country Studies - Austria

Category:Catholic political parties Category:Conservative parties in Austria Category:International Democrat Union Category:Political parties established in 1893

Name	Heinz Fischer
Office	President of Austria
Chancellor	Wolfgang Schüssel Alfred Gusenbauer Werner Faymann
Term start	8 July 2004
Predecessor	Thomas Klestil
Birth date
Birth place	Graz, Austria
Party	Social Democratic Party
Spouse	Margit Binder
Alma mater	University of Vienna
Religion	Agnosticism

Heinz Fischer GColIH (; born 9 October 1938) is the President of Austria. He took office on 8 July 2004 and was re-elected for a second and last term on 25 April 2010. Before he took office, Fischer was a member of the social democratic party (SPÖ). He suspended his membership for the duration of the office.

Early life

Born in Graz, Styria, Fischer attended the Gymnasium, focusing on humanities, and taking his Matura exams in 1956. He studied law at the University of Vienna, earning a doctorate in 1961. In 1963 at the age of 25, Fischer, spent a year volunteering at Kibbutz Sarid, northern Israel. Apart from being a politician, Fischer also pursued an academic career, and became a Professor of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck in 1993.

Political career

Fischer was a member of the Austrian parliament, the National Council, from 1971, and served as its president from 1990 to 2002. From 1983 to 1987 he was Minister for Science in a coalition government headed by Fred Sinowatz.

First term as President

In January 2004 Fischer announced that he would run for President to succeed Thomas Klestil. He was elected on 25 April 2004 as the candidate of the opposition Social Democratic Party. He polled 52.4 per cent of the votes to defeat Benita Ferrero-Waldner, then Foreign Minister in the ruling conservative coalition led by the People's Party.

Fischer was sworn in on 8 July 2004 and took over the office from the college of presidents of the National Council, who had acted for the President following Klestil's death on 6 July.

Apart from labelling him, in a slightly derogatory fashion, a Berufspolitiker ("professional politician") who allegedly has never been in touch with the real world, Fischer's critics, first and foremost his colleague at university, Norbert Leser, point out that Fischer has always avoided controversy and conflict, even when that would have been called for. The example frequently quoted in this context is Fischer's tacit support of Bruno Kreisky's attacks on Simon Wiesenthal. On being nominated for President, Fischer said that he hated antagonising people and that he considered this quality an asset rather than anything else.

Second term as President

In April 2010, Fischer was re-elected as President of Austria, winning a second six-year term in office with almost 79% of the votes with a record-low voter turnout of merely 53.6%. Around a third of those eligible to vote voted for Fischer, leading the conservative daily Die Presse to describe the election as an "absolute majority for non-voters". The reasons for the low turnout lay in the fact that pollsters had predicted a safe victory for Fischer (Austrian presidents running for a second term of office have always won) and the other big party, ÖVP had not nominated a candidate of their own, and had not endorsed anyone of the three candidates; some prominent persons from ÖVP, inoffically, but in public, even suggested to vote 'null and void', which did some ~7% of the voters.

Personal life

Fischer is an avowed agnostic. Fischer has been married since 1968. The couple has two grown children. Fischer enjoys mountaineering and has been president of the Austrian Friends of Nature for many years.

See also

List of national leaders

Politics of Austria

References

External links

Der Österreichische Bundespräsident/The Austrian Federal President (in German)

Personal website (in German)

Category:1938 births Category:Austrian agnostics Category:Current national leaders Category:Austrian politicians Category:People from Graz Category:Presidents of Austria Category:Recipients of the Order of Prince Henry Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav Category:Members of the National Council of Austria Category:Living people