Size of Vienna City Senate After Vienna Election Still Unclear

Since Vienna has a proportional system, the opposition also gets seats in the city senate after the Vienna election. However, these city councilors do not receive a department. The size of the city senate is also yet to be determined. What is certain, however, is that if the current total number of seats remains, the SPÖ would lose a seat.

City Council Decides on Size of Vienna City Senate

The distinction between "executive" and "non-executive" city councilors exists only in Vienna. The former head their own department. The decision on the appointments is made by the majority in the city council. The non-executive city councilors of the opposition do not have any business groups. However, they are allowed to participate in the city senate meetings.

The number of city councilors, which must be between nine and 15, is also decided by the city council with a majority vote. This not only determines how many there are, but also how many city councilors each faction receives. However, the distribution itself cannot be carried out arbitrarily. It is done according to the d'Hondt method. The calculation is based on the parties' mandate strength.

12 City Councilors After 2020 Vienna Election in Vienna City Senate

Currently, the city senate consists of twelve city councilors. Seven of them are executive: the SPÖ has six government members, and the NEOS has one. The ÖVP and the Greens each have two city councilors, and the FPÖ has one. After the Vienna election, the cards have been reshuffled. With the - not yet scheduled - inaugural meeting of the city council, the distribution will change.

If the size of the city senate were to remain at 12 seats, the list would look as follows: The ÖVP, which dropped to a vote share of under 10 percent in the election, would only have one city councilor with ten mandates. For the NEOS, which increased to over 10 percent and ten mandates, nothing changes here. The same applies to the Greens, who were able to almost maintain their result from 2020 (15 mandates instead of the previous 16).

The FPÖ climbed by 14 to 22 mandates. In the future, with the same total number, they would have three city council posts - even though, in terms of vote share, they were slightly below the ÖVP result from 2020. Since the SPÖ only has 43 instead of 46 mandates, the calculations result in three blue seats and not just two as was the case with the ÖVP back then. For the SPÖ, it would mean a reduction from six to five city councilors if the size of the senate does not change.

Expansion of Vienna City Senate Possible

However, if it is decided to elect 13 city councilors this time, the additional one would belong to the SPÖ according to the distribution key. The government team could thus enter the new legislative period without any personnel cuts. However, the decision on this has not yet been made. Currently, the - probably future - governing parties always emphasize that they want to talk about content first and then about positions.

If Red-Pink decides to continue with a smaller red team, the coalition could theoretically also reduce the city senate to eleven seats. The number of executive city councilors of the SPÖ or the NEOS would not change compared to the variant with twelve seats. Only a non-executive city councilor of the FPÖ would be eliminated, reducing their team to two.

If there are only five city councilors of the SPÖ in the future, the question of the successor to the former finance and economic city councilor Peter Hanke, who moved to the federal government, would resolve itself. The office is currently only temporarily held by Vienna's finance director Christoph Maschek. The red responsibilities could be redistributed among the five people already in the government. However, it is also conceivable that someone from this team might leave. In that case, new faces would certainly be seen in the city government.

(APA/Red)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.