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Andreas Babler, the real winner of the SPÖ chairman election: bill at primary school level

Photo: Georg Hochmuth / dpa

It's happened again. A message is once again coming out of Austrian domestic politics that is causing disbelief outside the Alpine country because it simply sounds grotesque: In the run-off election for the new leader of the Social Democratic Party, the result of the two candidates was swapped.

Yes, just swapped. Excel spreadsheet, "technical error," it said apologetically – a ridiculous excuse. No, it's not technology, but people alone who are to blame for the mess.

No one has counted again in the most important vote of the SPÖ this year. And this despite the fact that the number of valid votes was not identical to the sum of the votes for the two candidates, which was made public.

"316 + 279 = 595 and not 596."

This calculation at primary school level was made public by ORF journalist Martin Thür. Without the attentive TV man, the mistake would probably not have been revealed. Some are now murmuring about manipulation in political Vienna.

As absurd as the case is, it is not surprising.

The reputation of a banana republic

The case is part of a whole series of events in recent years that have increasingly earned Austria the reputation of a banana republic. Would you like some lows since 2016?

The Constitutional Court overturns the presidential election because the irregularities in the counting were too blatant. The repetition date is cancelled because the envelopes of the absentee ballot documents do not stick.

A declared clean man (the then FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache) is secretly filmed in Ibiza ranting about rather unclean things – when it comes out, the government bursts.

Another political star (then-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz) crashes after it becomes known that his meteoric rise was allegedly fueled with all sorts of taxpayers' money.

All three major tabloid media outlets are now accused of corruption – and continue unmoved.

In addition, countless small agitations and larger friend affairs become public, sometimes it's about posts, sometimes it's about personal enrichment, sometimes it's about cocaine and sex.

The political malaise of the center benefits the radical fringes

Austria's political theatre has long been ready for filming, and the material is already enough for several seasons.

So far, the SPÖ has had more of a supporting role, it was allowed to play clumsy and intriguer barn. Most recently, she tried to offer a political alternative to the conservative chancellor's party ÖVP, which still denies its blatant corruption problem.

But with its election farce, the SPÖ is having an effect similar to that of the Ibiza affair, the bribery scandals and all the other revelations: it is frustrating people in Austria, where politicians already have a very bad image.

No, there is nothing funny about this momentous sloppyness, it can have dangerous consequences. Because this level of operetta allows the distrust of the democratic center to run rampant. How do the Social Democrats want to lead the country if they fail because of a simple electoral process with a few hundred votes? Those who make a fool of themselves will not be elected (with the exception of satirical parties).

Austria's political landscape is characterized by coziness, cronyism and the tendency to let all fives be straight over a few bottles. For decades, this went well politically, people maneuvered their way through, elections were mostly won on the right of the center, but not on the far right.

But in times of multiple crises, Austria will no longer be able to muddle through as a sloppy republic as before. In particular, the chancellor's parties, the ÖVP and SPÖ, which have so far supported the state, are up for grabs. The beneficiaries of their malaise are the anti-liberal fringes on both sides: the radical right-wing FPÖ and the radical left-wing KPÖ, whose ratings have been rising remarkably for months. The rabid FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl in particular is likely to succeed thanks to the miserable performances of conservatives and social democrats – Kickl's internal party opponents, meanwhile, are sinking into a juicy expenses scandal.

It's also a question of mentality

Some political actors are already talking privately about the danger that Austria could be transformed into an authoritarian state after the next parliamentary elections under Chancellor Kickl – just as Viktor Orbán remodeled Hungary next door.

Whether the political centre will regain credibility in time is more uncertain than ever. Because the widespread tendency – consciously or through negligence – to fabricate something potentially scandalous could also be a question of mentality.

"You have to understand the role that corruption – the small, still legal, and the big one – plays in our country," former Vice Chancellor Erhard Busek said in 2021, a few months before his death. The conservative was without illusions: "We all know that this is the case anyway, you take it into account in advance, as an apology, so to speak. That may sound strange to a non-Austrian, but unfortunately that's how we are."

It would be nice if one day Busek's findings were no longer accurate.