Rant incoming.
So Austria currently has 6 major parties in parliament.
- Socialists (SPÖ, 28% of the seats)
- Conservatives (ÖVP, 28%)
- Right-Wingers (FPÖ, 22%)
- Greens (GRÜNE, 13%)
- Liberals (NEOS, 5%)
- That one crazy party founded by a billionaire and no one knows what it stands for (TEAM STRONACH, 4%)
Socialist and conservatives have formed a coalition government since 2006 (reelected in 2008 and 2013). And, to put it bluntly: they failed. The current Austrian government is one big failure, especially the SPÖ, who have absolutely failed to live up to their name and given in to their coalition partner in almost all of their key issues. They have a great platform, but failed to put any of it into practice. Some examples for this include the recent tax reform (SPÖ wanted to introduce a wealth tax), LGBT rights (SPÖ wanted to introduce same-*** marriage and have wider anti-discrimination laws) and Austria's role in the Eurozone talks about the Greek crisis (SPÖ supported the SYRIZA government). The population of course realized this and the SPÖ is currently at an all-time low in polls (only third strongest party), and they fail to do anything against it.
The recent refugee crisis (Austria had twice as many asylum applicantions from January to June 2015 than in the same period last year) shows everything that is wrong with both the political system and the parties best. There are more than enough places to accommodate all the refugees, but because accommodation is mostly a responsibility of the states, all the governors try to score some points with the electorate by taking as few as possible, causing the (federally owned) buildings responsible for the initial accommodation to be absolutely overcrowded. So now they look like this:
Spoiler!
The few refugees that do get taken by the states usually end up in tent camps at the edges of towns (keep in mind that Austria is the 13th richest country in the world).
This is all very clearly a failure of the Minister for Interior Affairs, who nevertheless refuses to step down.
The opposition parties use this chaos to their advantage, though in very differnt ways. The right-wing party fuels hate against refugees by painting them all as criminals who only want to take advantage of our social security system, while the Greens have tried to call for tolerance and municipalities controlled by them have taken in a bigger number of refugees. The former have had much more success and are currently polling first with 30%, 5 percent ahead of any other party.
So basically, Austria's government is a corrupt, hateful, idiotic and stupid group who have no idea how to manage a modern developed country.
End rant.