# 2015 Burgenland state election

The 2015 Burgenland state election was held on 31 May 2015 to elect the members of the 21st Landtag of Burgenland.
The two major parties, the governing Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), both lost votes. The three minor parties made gains and each doubled their representation in the Landtag.
With the SPÖ falling substantially short of a majority, they required a coalition partner to govern. They subsequently formed a coalition with the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), violating the party's federal directive not to work with FPÖ in government. The decision was subject to backlash and protests, but the coalition took office regardless.

## Background

In the 2010 election, the SPÖ won 48.3% of votes and fell one seat short of an absolute majority. They thus negotiated a working agreement with the ÖVP.
Before amendments made in 2014, the Burgenland constitution required that cabinet positions in the state government be distributed proportionally among parties based on their share of the votes received. This practice is commonly referred to as Proporz. As such, the government was a perpetual coalition of all parties that qualified for at least one cabinet position. In December 2014, the SPÖ and ÖVP voted to amend the constitution to remove this requirement. As such, the 2015 election was the first in post-war Burgenland history in which conventional coalition formation could take place.

## Electoral system

The 36 seats of the Landtag of Burgenland are elected via open list proportional representation in a two-step process. The seats are distributed between seven multi-member constituencies, corresponding to the seven districts of Burgenland (the statutory cities of Eisenstadt and Rust are combined with Eisenstadt-Umgebung District). Apportionment of the seats is based on the results of the most recent census.
For parties to receive any representation in the Landtag, they must either win at least one seat in a constituency directly, or clear a 4 percent state-wide electoral threshold. Seats are distributed in constituencies according to the Hare quota, with any remaining seats allocated using the D'Hondt method at the state level, to ensure overall proportionality between a party's vote share and its share of seats.
In addition to voting for a political party, voters may cast preferential votes for specific candidates of that party, but are not required to do so. These additional votes do not affect the proportional allocation based on the vote for the party or list, but can change the rank order of candidates on a party's lists at the state and constituency level. Voters may cast one preferential vote at the state level, or three at the constituency level. A voter may not cross party-lines to cast a preference vote for a candidate of another party; such preference votes are invalid.

## Contesting parties

| Name | Name | Name | Ideology | Leader | 2010 result | 2010 result | 2010 result |
| Name | Name | Name | Ideology | Leader | Votes (%) | Seats | Councillors |
| | SPÖ | Social Democratic Party of Austria Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs | Social democracy | Hans Niessl | 48.3% | 18 / 36 | 4 / 7 |
| | ÖVP | Austrian People's Party Österreichische Volkspartei | Christian democracy | Franz Steindl | 34.6% | 13 / 36 | 3 / 7 |
| | FPÖ | Freedom Party of Austria Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs | Right-wing populism Euroscepticism | Johann Tschürtz | 9.0% | 3 / 36 |
| | GRÜNE | The Greens – The Green Alternative Die Grünen – Die Grüne Alternative | Green politics | Regina Petrik | 4.1% | 1 / 36 |
| | LBL | List Burgenland Liste Burgenland | Regionalism | Manfred Kölly | 4.0% | 1 / 36 |
In addition to the parties already represented in the Landtag, four parties collected enough signatures to be placed on the ballot.
* NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum (NEOS)
* Christian Party of Austria (CPÖ)

## Opinion polling

| Polling firm | Fieldwork date | Sample size | SPÖ | ÖVP | FPÖ | Grüne | LBL | NEOS | Lead |
| 2015 state election | 31 May 2015 | – | 41.9 | 29.1 | 15.0 | 6.4 | 4.8 | 2.3 | 12.8 |
| Gallup | 21–23 Apr 2015 | 400 | 44 | 31 | 13 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 13 |
| Hajek | April 2015 | 1,000 | 46 | 30 | 12 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 16 |
| 2010 state election | 30 May 2010 | – | 48.3 | 34.6 | 9.0 | 4.1 | 4.0 | – | 13.7 |

## Results

| | Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) | 77,947 | 41.92 | –6.34 | 15 | –3 |
| | Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) | 54,082 | 29.08 | –5.54 | 11 | –2 |
| | Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) | 27,963 | 15.04 | +6.06 | 6 | +3 |
| | The Greens – The Green Alternative (GRÜNE) | 11,964 | 6.43 | +2.28 | 2 | +1 |
| | List Burgenland (LBL) | 8,970 | 4.82 | +0.82 | 2 | +1 |
| | NEOS – The New Austria (NEOS) | 4,337 | 2.33 | New | 0 | New |
| | Christian Party of Austria (CPÖ) | 699 | 0.38 | +0.38 | 0 | ±0 |
| Invalid/blank votes | Invalid/blank votes | 4,594 | – | – | – | – |
| Total | Total | 190,556 | 100 | – | 36 | 0 |
| Registered voters/turnout | Registered voters/turnout | 250,607 | 76.04 | –1.26 | – | – |
| Source: Burgenland Government |||||||
Popular vote
SPÖ
41.92%
ÖVP
29.08%
FPÖ
15.04%
GRÜNE
6.43%
LBL
4.82%
NEOS
2.33%
CPÖ
0.38% :
Landtag seats
SPÖ
41.67%
ÖVP
30.56%
FPÖ
16.67%
GRÜNE
5.56%
LBL
5.56% :

### Results by constituency

| Constituency | SPÖ | SPÖ | ÖVP | ÖVP | FPÖ | FPÖ | Grüne | Grüne | LBL | LBL | NEOS | NEOS | Others | Total seats | Turnout |
| Constituency | % | S | % | S | % | S | % | S | % | S | % | S | % | Total seats | Turnout |
| Neusiedl | 44.5 | 3 | 28.0 | 1 | 15.9 | 1 | 6.0 | | 2.5 | | 2.6 | | 0.5 | 5 | 73.9 |
| Eisenstadt | 39.4 | 2 | 30.7 | 2 | 13.3 | | 8.6 | | 5.1 | | 2.6 | | 0.4 | 4 | 76.2 |
| Mattersburg | 46.5 | 2 | 22.5 | 1 | 15.9 | | 6.4 | | 6.0 | | 2.5 | | 0.3 | 3 | 75.0 |
| Oberpullendorf | 42.5 | 2 | 30.7 | 1 | 10.2 | | 5.7 | | 9.4 | | 1.9 | | | 3 | 79.1 |
| Oberwart | 41.6 | 2 | 27.6 | 1 | 18.0 | 1 | 6.3 | | 3.6 | | 2.3 | | 0.5 | 4 | 75.8 |
| Güssing | 39.9 | 1 | 35.0 | 1 | 14.7 | | 5.2 | | 3.0 | | 1.8 | | 0.4 | 2 | 78.6 |
| Jennersdorf | 35.3 | | 32.2 | | 19.2 | | 6.4 | | 4.5 | | 2.0 | | 0.4 | 0 | 74.2 |
| Remaining seats | | 3 | | 4 | | 4 | | 2 | | 2 | | 0 | | 15 | |
| Total | 41.9 | 15 | 29.1 | 11 | 15.0 | 6 | 6.4 | 2 | 4.8 | 2 | 2.3 | 0 | 0.4 | 36 | 76.0 |
| Source: Burgenland Government ||||||||||||||||

### Preference votes

Alongside votes for a party, voters were able to cast a preferential votes for a candidate on the party list. The ten candidates with the most preferential votes on a state level were as follows:
| Party | Pos. | Candidate | Votes |
| SPÖ | 1 | Hans Niessl | 33,607 |
| ÖVP | 1 | Franz Steindl | 13,707 |
| FPÖ | 1 | Johann Tschürtz | 9,048 |
| LBL | 1 | Manfred Kölly | 3,468 |
| GRÜNE | 1 | Regina Petrik | 3,215 |
| FPÖ | 2 | Ilse Benkö | 2,365 |
| ÖVP | 6 | Walter Temmel | 2,199 |
| ÖVP | 14 | Patrik Fazekas | 2,010 |
| SPÖ | 4 | Verena Dunst | 1,962 |
| ÖVP | 2 | Michaela Resetar | 1,496 |