2023 Social Democratic Party of Austria leadership election

The leadership election became necessary after Hans Peter Doskozil, a migration hardliner from Eastern Austria, applied for the party chair after years of publicly cross-firing against current party leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner, the first woman to lead the SPÖ on a federal level since 2018. Until now, a colleague has never challenged an incumbent SPÖ chairperson.

For months, the Social Democrats have been in second place behind the far-right FPÖ in Austrian polls, although they were almost consistently in the lead in 2022, sometimes even topping 30%. By the end of March 2023, the SPÖ has even fallen into third place in new opinion polls as a result of the infighting in recent months.[1]

The party member vote started the day after the 2023 Salzburg state election, in which the SPÖ received its worst election result ever. The SPÖ previously lost a significant share of votes in the 2023 Lower Austrian state election in January and in the 2023 Carinthian state election in March. With the leadership election, the party therefore hopes for a turnaround ahead of the next Austrian legislative election (scheduled for autumn 2024).

According to SPÖ party statutes, the vote results by party members will be non-binding to delegates at the extraordinary party congress on 3 June, but Rendi-Wagner and Doskozil have pledged to accept the results of the party member vote. Babler has not done so, instead calling for a runoff vote. He also indicated that he might run as a candidate at the extraordinary party congress on 3 June, even if he doesn't get the most votes in the member vote.[2]

On 22 March, the SPÖ announced that anyone with an active party membership by Friday, 24 March 2023, can be a candidate in the election. Potential candidates also had until 24 March (midnight) to submit their candidacy (= filing deadline).[3]

As of 23 March, there were at least 7 publicly announced candidates.

But following the announcement of Traiskirchen mayor Andreas Babler as a candidate, some candidates have withdrawn or were considering withdrawing their candidacy.[4]

Nikolaus Kowall, who like Babler represents the left-wing of the party, withdrew his candidacy and endorsed Babler instead.[5]

On 25 March, the SPÖ announced that 73 people have submitted their candidacy by the end of the deadline, among them 69 men and 4 women. The SPÖ checked the validity of their registrations and debated their ballot access in its final leadership committee meeting on 27 March.[6]

On 11 April, the SPÖ announced that only 3 of the 73 submitted candidacies qualified for the ballot.[7]

Primary organizational questions about how the leadership election should be conducted were debated and announced in late March 2023 by the SPÖ's top party committees.

On 22 March 2023, the SPÖ announced the date of the membership vote (from 24 April to 10 May). It further confirmed that the vote will be held by mail and online, overseen by an official independent notary and independent IT experts. Following the party member vote, a subsequent extraordinary party congress will be held on 3 June to elect the new chairperson.

Initially, about 140,000 party members were eligible to vote. The deadline to register as a new party member of the SPÖ - and therefore to vote in the election - was Friday, 24 March 2023, at midnight. The same deadline applied to party members seeking a candidacy.

On 25 March 2023, the SPÖ announced that it received about 9.000 new applications for party membership before the deadline, that the applications will be reviewed and checked for validity in the coming days and that the final number of eligible voters will be released.

On Monday, 27 March 2023, the conduct of the leadership election and remaining questions was finalized and approved by the SPÖ's top party committee. Final unresolved questions include the number of candidates and if all serious candidacies submitted by the deadline should be allowed onto the ballot. With 73 people registering their candidacy before the deadline, some committee members are calling for additional hurdles for ballot access, such as collecting a certain number of signatures from party members. Another question to be resolved is the possibility (or necessity) of a runoff election, in case no candidate should reach a majority of votes.[9]

The SPÖ announced that by Friday, 31 March 2023, all 73 potential candidates must submit the following to the party:

1. at least 30 signatures from fellow party members
2. an official government document declaring they have no criminal record
3. declare that they are not a member of another party
4. that they are eligible to be a candidate for the 2024 Austrian legislative election
5. a formal application document with name, address, citizenship, picture, contact information, a personal curriculum vitae and preferably a short introduction or motivational video to be posted on the SPÖ candidate website as information for voters in the leadership election

The SPÖ decided to introduce these criteria to avoid fake or joke candidacies among the 73 submitted candidate applications and to narrow down the ballot to include serious candidates only. There was at least one application in which a giraffe wanted to become the next SPÖ leader.[10]

There will be no runoff if no candidate receives a majority of the votes. Hans Peter Doskozil said he will not be a candidate at the subsequent extraordinary party congress on 3 June, even "if he just receives a single vote less than another candidate."

Pamela Rendi-Wagner will be ranked first on the ballot, then Doskozil, followed by the other approved candidates and the date of their candidacy submissions.[11]

The verification documents from the 73 candidates who filed their candidacy will be reviewed until 11 April 2023 by the SPÖ. In a meeting on 11 April, the party will announce which candidates will be on the ballot and in which order.

On 11 April 2023, the SPÖ announced that only Rendi-Wagner, Doskozil and Babler met the criteria above and will appear on the ballot, while the remaining 70 submitted candidacies were either invalid, incomplete or withdrawn. The party further announced that the result of the membership vote by mail and online will be released no sooner than 22 May 2023. This is because mail ballots from party members can be received up until 17 May 2023, with a post stamp no later than 10 May 2023. Mail votes will trump online votes, in case a party member accidentally (or intentionally) voted twice. The vote-counting process will be administered and cross-checked by the SPÖ's internal voting commission, independent notaries and IT experts.[12]

(Note: the leadership election will be conducted among SPÖ party members only. The poll results above do not reflect the voting intentions of party members only.)

Results will be released on 22 May 2023.

Harry Kopietz

Michaela Grubesa

On 11 May 2023, before the results were announced, the leader of the 20-member SPÖ election commission, Harry Kopietz (a Rendi-Wagner supporter), resigned because of health reasons.

He was replaced by Michaela Grubesa (a Doskozil supporter), with the overall size of the election commission shrinking to 19. Members who resign cannot be replaced during the term as they are elected at the party convention.[13]

Grubesa announced that "she wants to make the vote counting process as transparent as possible" and invited representatives of all 3 candidates to oversee the vote count, as well as notaries and external IT experts.[14]