Monday 23 May 2016

Presidential Elections, Austria, Voting Behaviour and Education

Yesterday the presidential elections took place in Austria, with two candidates who could not be more different from each other: a) an "exclusion candidate" from a party whose main political content communicated in campaigns is patriotism, nationalism, asylym seekers (a "big" problem; after all an equivalent to about 1% of the Austrian population claimed asylum in Austria last year, via), xenophobia and Islam bashing, and b) an "inclusion candidate", an intellectual who stands for inclusion and modern social policies.



The presidents of the European Commission and the European Parliament, Jean-Claude Juncker and Martin Schulz expressed concern over a victory of the far-right candidate (via) while Le Pen, Wilders, Petry and Salvini congratulated him (via and via).

The results?
About half of the people voted for one candidate, about half of the people voted for the other candidate. The final result will be decided by this afternoon when hundred thousands of postal ballots are counted.

The demographics?
Education:
- 81% of people with a university degree voted for the "inclusion candidate", 19% of them for the "exclusion candidate"
- 73% of people with "Matura" (i.e. 12 years of school education with school leaving exams that entitle you to study at university) voted for the "inclusion candidate", 27% for the "exclusion candidate"
- 67% of people with minimum compulsory schooling and apprenticeship voted for the "exclusion candidate", 33% of them for the "inclusion candidate"
Blue vs white:
- 86% of blue-collar workers voted for the "exclusion candidate", 14% of them for the "inclusion candidate"
Urban vs rural:
- Cities clearly voted for the "inclusion candidate", 61.99% of people living in Graz and 61.16 of people living in Vienna voted for the "inclusion candidate" ... just to mention two cities
Gender: 
- 60% of women voted for the "inclusion candidate", 60% of men for the "exclusion candidate"

(Statistics via and via)



photograph (Miss Nell Sanders Aspero, Mrs. Anthony A. Aspero, Chairman of Voters Service and practicing attorney, Mrs. Robert W. Shafer, President of the Memphis League and Bobby Shafer Jr, all of Memphis with Mrs. Asperos' Oldsmobile and "Bossy." August 1959) via, Vote Baby Vote via

6 comments:

  1. People turn to those who offer simple solutions.

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  2. Education can be a key to pretty much everything.

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    Replies
    1. It surely can. Many thanks for your comment, Karen!

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  3. More education does not make you smarter, but it does make you more educated ;-) And that helps...

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    Replies
    1. Indeed ;-) It certainly helped in this case. There is a relatively low percentage of university graduates but they were the group with the highest turnout. Thank you for your comment, Kenneth!

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