Austrian legislative election, 1986

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The elections to the Austrian National Council taking place in fall of 1986 followed shortly after Jörg Haider had ousted Norbert Steger as the leader of the FPÖ at the party convention in Innsbruck. SPÖ Chancellor Franz Vranitzky did not want to continue the coalition with the FPÖ now led by Haider and announced early elections.

Adherents of the ÖVP, then led by Alois Mock, widely hoped that it could continue its recent successes (such as the election of Kurt Waldheim as Austrian president) and replace the SPÖ as the leading party. However, rather unexpectedly, the ÖVP remained in second place (even though the losses of the SPÖ were greater), while the FPÖ gained due to the charismatic leadership of Jörg Haider. These were also the first elections when the Greens entered parliament, following a merger between a left-wing and a right-wing green party, neither of which had obtained a sufficient number of votes to gain seats in parliament in 1983.

The elections of 1986 marked a major turning point in Austrian politics, since it resulted in the creation of a "grand coalition" between the SPÖ and the ÖVP which continued until 1999. In part, it was driven by either party's unwillingness to cooperate with Jörg Haider. At the same time, Haider subsequently managed to increase his party's share in votes dramatically by criticizing the coalition.

Party	Seats (loss/gain)	Share of Vote (loss/gain)
SPÖ (Social Democratic Party of Austria)	80 (-10)	43.1 (-4.5)
ÖVP (Austrian People's Party) (conservative)	77 (-4)	41.3 (-1.9)
FPÖ (Freedom Party of Austria) (nationalist)	18 (+6)	9.7 (+4.7)
Green Party (ecologist)	8 (+8)	4.8 (+1.4)
Others	0 (0)	1.0

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