Austria 2008 – live election results

28/9/2008 Editor

Molterer (Ã–VP), Van der Bellen (Greens), Strache (FPÃ–), Haider (BZÃ–), Faymann (SPÃ–)

Will the far-right surge result in another Grand Coalition?

Welcome to live coverage on PB of the 2008 Austrian election results. The snap election was called after the Grand Coalition collapsed after only 18 months in office. More background is available here from the earlier PB article and here from Wikipedia.

Early indications are that there has been a surge in support for the two far-right parties, the Freedom Party and Haider’s BZÃ–, and the “big two”, the Social Democrats (SPÃ–) and People’s Party (Ã–VP), look set for their lowest combined share since the war at under 60% – the far-right combined vote may approach 30%.

There will be a flood of results at 4pm UK time as most of Austria closes polls in the early afternoon or before, and all results should be in by 7-7.30 our time. We may well be in for weeks, possibly months of coalition negotiations thereafter as the shape of the new government is hammered out.

UPDATE