2019 Austrian legislative election
Legislative elections were held in Austria on 29 September 2019 to elect the 27th National Council, the lower house of Austria's bicameral parliament. The snap election was called in the wake of the Ibiza affair in May, which caused the resignation of Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and the collapse of the governing coalition of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). The government subsequently lost a motion of no confidence in parliament, before ÖVP Chancellor Sebastian Kurz was replaced by non-partisan Brigitte Bierlein on an interim basis. The conservative ÖVP achieved its best result since 2002, improving its vote share six percentage points. The centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) won just 21.2%, its worst result in over a century. The FPÖ suffered a substantial loss of almost ten points. The Greens re-entered the National Council after falling out in 2017, and achieved their best ever result with 13.9% and 26 seats. NEOS improved from 2017, rising from 10 to 15 seats. With the ÖVP in a clear position to lead the new government, it held talks with all other parties. By early November, a coalition with The Greens was seen as the most likely outcome. Negotiations continued through December, and on 1 January, ÖVP leader Kurz and Greens leader Werner Kogler announced the formation of a coalition government between their two parties. The government was sworn in on 7 January 2020 as Second Kurz government, with Sebastian Kurz returning as Chancellor and Kogler taking office as Vice Chancellor. Background The 2017 legislative election was called four years into a grand coalition between the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), prompted by the demand of newly elected ÖVP leader Sebastian Kurz for a snap election. Although the SPÖ won 52 seats, as it did in the 2013 election, the ÖVP and FPÖ both made large gains, increasing their strength by 15 seats to 62 and by 11 to 51, respectively, making the former the largest party at the federal level. The Peter Pilz List entered the National Council with 8 seats, while the NEOS gained one seat and the Greens lost all of their 24 seats because they failed to clear the 4% threshold of the vote, which is required to qualify for the proportional allocation of seats. Following the election, President Alexander Van der Bellen asked Kurz to form the next government, and the ÖVP initiated exploratory talks with the other parties represented in the National Council. The ÖVP officially started coalition negotiations with the FPÖ on 25 October 2017, agreeing on a five-point roadmap. Negotiations drew towards a close in late November, and the parties announced a coalition agreement on 15 December, with the coalition government led by Kurz sworn in on 18 December. On 4 November 2017 Peter Pilz announced that he would not take his seat, following accusations of sexual harassment. On 11 June 2018, Pilz returned to the National Council and was sworn in after charges of