| Election Name: | 2003 Lower Austrian state election |
| Country: | Lower Austria |
| Flag Year: | state |
| Type: | parliamentary |
| Ongoing: | no |
| Previous Election: | 1998 Lower Austrian state election |
| Previous Year: | 1998 |
| Next Election: | 2008 Lower Austrian state election |
| Next Year: | 2008 |
| Seats For Election: | All 56 seats in the Landtag of Lower Austria All 9 seats in the state government |
| Election Date: | 30 March 2003 |
| Turnout: | 937,487 (71.8%) 0.2% |
| Leader1: | Erwin Pröll |
| Party1: | Austrian People's Party |
| Last Election1: | 27 seats, 44.9% |
| Seats1: | 31 |
| Seat Change1: | 4 |
| Popular Vote1: | 491,065 |
| Percentage1: | 53.3% |
| Swing1: | 8.4% |
| Leader2: | Heidemaria Onodi |
| Party2: | Social Democratic Party of Austria |
| Last Election2: | 18 seats, 30.4% |
| Seats2: | 19 |
| Seat Change2: | 1 |
| Popular Vote2: | 309,199 |
| Percentage2: | 33.6% |
| Swing2: | 3.2% |
| Party4: | The Greens – The Green Alternative |
| Last Election4: | 2 seats, 4.5% |
| Seats4: | 4 |
| Seat Change4: | 2 |
| Popular Vote4: | 66,543 |
| Percentage4: | 7.2% |
| Swing4: | 2.7% |
| Party5: | Freedom Party of Austria |
| Last Election5: | 9 seats, 16.1% |
| Seats5: | 2 |
| Seat Change5: | 7 |
| Popular Vote5: | 41,391 |
| Percentage5: | 4.5% |
| Swing5: | 11.6% |
| Governor | |
| Before Election: | Erwin Pröll |
| Before Party: | Austrian People's Party |
| After Election: | Erwin Pröll |
| After Party: | Austrian People's Party |
The 2003 Lower Austrian state election was held on 30 March 2003 to elect the members of the Landtag of Lower Austria.
The election was won by the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), who won an absolute majority in the Landtag for the first time since 1988. They achieved a strong swing of 8.4 percentage points. The Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and The Greens also made gains; this was enabled by the collapse of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). The FPÖ lost almost three-quarters of its vote share and only narrowly passed the 4% electoral threshold, falling from nine seats to just two.[1]
The Lower Austrian constitution mandates that cabinet positions in the state government (state councillors, German: Landesräten) be allocated between parties proportionally in accordance with the share of votes won by each; this is known as Proporz. As such, the government is a perpetual coalition of all parties that qualify for at least one state councillor. After the 1998 election, the ÖVP had five councillors, the SPÖ three, and the FPÖ one.
The 56 seats of the Landtag of Lower Austria are elected via open list proportional representation in a two-step process. The seats are distributed between twenty-one multi-member constituencies. For parties to receive any representation in the Landtag, they must either win at least one seat in a constituency directly, or clear a 4 percent state-wide electoral threshold. Seats are distributed in constituencies according to the Hare quota, with any remaining seats allocated using the D'Hondt method at the state level, to ensure overall proportionality between a party's vote share and its share of seats.[2]
The table below lists parties represented in the previous Landtag.
| Name | Ideology | Leader | 1998 result | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes (%) | Seats | Councillors | |||||
| ÖVP | Austrian People's Party | Christian democracy | Erwin Pröll | 44.9% | |||
| SPÖ | Social Democratic Party of Austria | Social democracy | Heidemaria Onodi | 30.4% | |||
| FPÖ | Freedom Party of Austria | Right-wing populism Euroscepticism | ? | 16.1% | |||
| GRÜNE | The Greens – The Green Alternative | Green politics | ? | 4.5% | |||
In addition to the parties already represented in the Landtag, three parties collected enough signatures to be placed on the ballot.[3]
| Party | Votes | % | +/− | Seats | +/− | +/− | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bgcolor= | Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) | 491,065 | 53.29 | +8.42 | 31 | +4 | 6 | +1 | |
| bgcolor= | Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) | 309,199 | 33.55 | +3.16 | 19 | +1 | 3 | ±0 | |
| bgcolor= | The Greens – The Green Alternative (GRÜNE) | 66,543 | 7.22 | +2.73 | 4 | +2 | 0 | ±0 | |
| bgcolor= | Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) | 41,391 | 4.49 | –11.59 | 2 | –7 | 0 | –1 | |
| bgcolor= | Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) | 7,074 | 0.77 | +0.13 | 0 | ±0 | 0 | ±0 | |
| Green independent Austria (GRÜNÖ) | 6,013 | 0.65 | New | 0 | New | 0 | New | ||
| Christian Voter Community (CWG) | 187 | 0.02 | New | 0 | New | 0 | New | ||
| Invalid/blank votes | 16,015 | – | – | – | – | – | – | ||
| Total | 937,487 | 100 | – | 56 | 0 | 9 | 0 | ||
| align=left colspan=2 | Registered voters/turnout | 1,305,950 | 71.79 | –0.16 | – | – | – | – | |
| align=left colspan=9 | Source: Lower Austrian Government | ||||||||
| Constituency | ÖVP | SPÖ | Grüne | FPÖ | Others | Total seats | Turnout | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| class=unsortable | % | class=unsortable | class=unsortable | % | class=unsortable | class=unsortable | % | class=unsortable | class=unsortable | % | class=unsortable | class=unsortable | % | ||||
| 58.4 | 3 | 30.3 | 1 | 6.5 | 3.6 | 1.2 | 4 | 76.7 | |||||||||
| 45.7 | 2 | 39.5 | 1 | 8.1 | 5.0 | 1.6 | 3 | 66.4 | |||||||||
| 48.4 | 39.7 | 5.9 | 4.8 | 1.2 | 0 | 71.1 | |||||||||||
| 48.4 | 1 | 39.6 | 1 | 6.0 | 4.6 | 1.5 | 2 | 69.7 | |||||||||
| 48.2 | 42.1 | 3.8 | 4.5 | 1.3 | 0 | 75.6 | |||||||||||
| 61.1 | 1 | 27.9 | 5.3 | 4.6 | 1.1 | 1 | 74.3 | ||||||||||
| 67.3 | 1 | 22.6 | 5.2 | 4.0 | 0.9 | 1 | 76.6 | ||||||||||
| 54.7 | 1 | 30.1 | 9.0 | 4.8 | 1.4 | 1 | 68.8 | ||||||||||
| 59.2 | 2 | 27.6 | 7.1 | 4.6 | 1.6 | 2 | 74.6 | ||||||||||
| 48.4 | 41.2 | 4.6 | 4.2 | 1.6 | 0 | 78.0 | |||||||||||
| 55.6 | 1 | 33.1 | 1 | 5.2 | 4.8 | 1.3 | 2 | 77.8 | |||||||||
| 60.3 | 2 | 27.8 | 6.3 | 4.3 | 1.3 | 2 | 74.8 | ||||||||||
| 50.0 | 2 | 28.7 | 1 | 14.3 | 5.0 | 2.0 | 3 | 62.9 | |||||||||
| 47.8 | 1 | 41.0 | 1 | 6.3 | 3.8 | 1.2 | 2 | 72.7 | |||||||||
| 48.4 | 2 | 37.9 | 2 | 7.6 | 4.3 | 1.7 | 4 | 74.2 | |||||||||
| 62.6 | 1 | 26.8 | 5.8 | 3.5 | 1.3 | 1 | 78.5 | ||||||||||
| 57.8 | 1 | 28.9 | 7.3 | 4.5 | 1.5 | 1 | 74.4 | ||||||||||
| 61.5 | 26.1 | 4.9 | 6.1 | 1.4 | 0 | 74.9 | |||||||||||
| 48.6 | 2 | 40.0 | 1 | 6.1 | 3.8 | 1.4 | 3 | 69.3 | |||||||||
| Vienna Surrounds | 44.0 | 1 | 36.9 | 1 | 12.0 | 5.4 | 1.87 | 2 | 61.9 | ||||||||
| 69.0 | 1 | 20.1 | 5.1 | 4.7 | 1.1 | 1 | 78.1 | ||||||||||
| Remaining seats | 6 | 9 | 4 | 2 | 21 | ||||||||||||
| Total | 53.3 | 31 | 33.6 | 19 | 7.2 | 4 | 4.5 | 2 | 1.4 | 56 | 71.8 | ||||||
| Source: Lower Austrian Government | |||||||||||||||||