National Council of Austria Nationalrat |
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---|---|
24th Legislative Period | |
Type | |
Type | Lower house |
Leadership | |
President | Barbara Prammer, SPÖ since 30 October 2006 |
Second President | Fritz Neugebauer, ÖVP |
Third President | Martin Graf, FPÖ |
Structure | |
Members | 183 |
Nationalrat Political groups | |
Elections | |
Nationalrat Voting system | Proportional representation |
Nationalrat Last election | 28 September 2008 |
Meeting place | |
Parlament Innere Stadt, Vienna Republic of Austria |
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Website | |
Official Website |
The National Council (German: Nationalrat) is one of the two houses of the Austrian parliament. According to the constitution, the National Council and the complementary Federal Council are peers. As a practical matter, the National Council is decidedly more powerful, though it is frequently described as the lower house.
Contents |
Austria |
This article is part of the series: |
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Constitution
Executive
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Decentralized gov't
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The National Council is where Austria's federal legislative authority is concentrated; for a bill to become federal law, it must be resolved upon by this chamber. Bills passed by the National Council are sent to the Federal Council for corroboration. If the Federal Council approves of the bill or simply does nothing for eight weeks, the bill has succeeded. If the Federal Council vetoes the bill, the National Council may still force it into law by essentially just passing it again; a National Council resolution overruling a Federal Council objection merely has to meet a higher quorum than a regular resolution. In other words, the Federal Council does not have any real power to prevent adoption of legislation, the National Council being trivially able to override it. There are three exceptions to this rule: bills amending constitutional law, bills curtailing the rights of Austria's member states, and bills pertaining to the organization of the legislature itself cannot be forced into law against Federal Council opposition.
The approval of the National Council is also required for most of the prerogatives of the Federal Assembly to be exercised. For example, motions to call for a referendum aimed at having the President removed from office by the electorate, and motions to declare war all need a two-thirds majority in the National Council. Only motions to impeach the President can also be from the Federal Council.[1]
The 183 members of the National Council are elected by nation-wide popular vote for a term of four years; each Austrian sixteen years or older on the day the election takes place is entitled to one vote. National Council elections are general elections. The voting system aims at party-list proportional representation, uses partially open lists, and is relatively straightforward:
In addition to voting for a party list, voters may express preference for one individual candidate. A candidate receiving sufficiently many personal votes can rise in rank on his or her district party list; voters thus have a certain degree of influence as to which particular individual wins which particular seat. It is not possible, however, to simultaneously vote for party X but exert influence on the candidate rankings on the party list of party Y.
Austria's federal constitution defines Austria to be a presidential democracy: the executive branch of government is supposed to be headed by the president and not to be answerable to the legislative branch. In practice, however, Austria's federal administration as such has comparatively little scope and would be almost totally paralyzed should the National Council fail to support it. While the executive branch has the theoretical authority to dissolve a hostile National Council, constitutional convention prevents this power from being exercised. Austria accordingly functions as a parliamentary democracy: for all intents and purposes, the cabinet is subject to approval by the National Council, the president being little more than a figurehead.
A related discrepancy between Austrian constitutional theory and Austrian political practice is that the constitution defines the President of the National Council to be Austria's second highest public official, junior only to the president proper. As a practical matter, the President of the National Council is a representative of rather moderate significance: wielding less power than the president by extension means wielding less power than the head of cabinet or even most federal ministers. The President of the National Council thus serves mostly as a more or less nonpartisan moderator of parliamentary debate.
Parties | Votes | +/− | % | +/− | Seats | +/− | |
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Social Democratic Party of Austria (Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs) | 1,430,206 | −233,780 | 29.26 | −6.08 | 57 | −11 | |
Austrian People's Party (Österreichische Volkspartei) | 1,269,656 | −346,837 | 25.98 | −8.35 | 51 | −15 | |
Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs) | 857,029 | +337,431 | 17.54 | +6.50 | 34 | +13 | |
BZÖ – Jörg Haider's List (BZÖ – Liste Jörg Haider) | 522,933 | +329,394 | 10.70 | +6.59 | 21 | +14 | |
The Greens – The Green Alternative (Die Grünen – Die Grüne Alternative) | 509,936 | −10,194 | 10.43 | −0.62 | 20 | −1 | |
Liberal Forum (Liberales Forum) | 102,249 | * | 2.09 | * | 0 | –1 ¶ | |
Citizens' Forum Austria Fritz Dinkhauser's List (Bürgerforum Österreich Liste Fritz Dinkhauser) | 86,194 | * | 1.76 | * | 0 | * | |
Communist Party of Austria (Kommunistische Partei Österreichs) | 37,362 | −10,216 | 0.76 | −0.25 | 0 | — | |
Independent Citizens' Initiative Save Austria (Unabhängige Bürgerinitiative Rettet Österreich) | 35,718 | * | 0.73 | * | 0 | * | |
The Christians (Die Christen) | 31,080 | * | 0.64 | * | 0 | * | |
Animal Rights Party earth–human–animals–nature (Tierrechtspartei earth–human–animals–nature) [2] | 2,224 | * | 0.05 | * | 0 | * | |
Left (Linke) [1] | 2,138 | –119† | 0.04 | ;±0.00† | 0 | † | |
Dipl.-Ing. Karlheinz Klement (Dipl.-Ing. Karlheinz Klement) [3] | 347 | * | 0.01 | * | 0 | * | |
List Strong (Liste Stark) [3] | 237 | −75 | 0.00 | –0.01 | 0 | — | |
Invalid/blank votes | 103,643 | — | — | — | — | — | |
Total (turnout 78.82%; +0.34%) | 4,990,952 | — | 100.0 | — | 183 | — | |
Notes:
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Source: Nohlen D & Stöver P (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook p217 |
Party | Members |
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SPÖ | 57 | |
ÖVP | 51 | |
FPÖ | 34 | |
Grüne | 20 | |
BZÖ | 17 | |
FPK | 3 | |
Independent | 1 | |
Total |
183 |
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