Round trip before the election

Despite the crisis: Styrians are not losing confidence

Three of the many people we met on our tour: Martina Pöschl, Bernadette Schönbacher and Franz Jantscher.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Erwin Scheriau, Jürgen Fuchs, Christian Jauchowetz)

For three weeks, we took a close look at Styria and its politics, recorded statistics and visited many municipalities. Here we take stock of our "Styria survey" series - and the results are more positive than the general mood in the state would suggest. 

Is there even such a thing as one Styria? Even if our federal state is a tiny corner of the world in global terms, there is considerable diversity across its more than 16,000 square kilometers and among its more than 1.2 million inhabitants.

We attempted to map this diversity in our "Styria survey" focus in the run-up to the state elections - in cooperation with the Institute for Journalism and Digital Media at the Joanneum University of Applied Sciences. Political researcher Heinz Wassermann collected and analyzed data for us (especially from the state statistics). The result was a political and social deep dive.

The Styrian top candidates at the "Krone" elephant round with Puls24(Bild: Christian Jauschowetz)

Kurz's resignation in 2021 changed almost everything
In the first part, we took an in-depth look at the six parties represented in the state parliament. A look at the election results since 2019 shows that the ÖVP was riding a wave of success until the resignation of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz in October 2021, but has since lost every election, in some cases dramatically. At the same time, the FPÖ began its rapid rise, consistently recording high gains.

The SPÖ has largely remained at the same level. The Greens held up well for a long time despite being in government, but this year they have already suffered painful losses. The KPÖ has generally made gains recently, as have the Neos.

The parties' hopes for the future
We have also presented two future hopefuls from each party who are not yet in the limelight. Their visits to the "Steirerkrone" editorial office had different settings: Some came well briefed with the party's press spokesperson, others unaccompanied - they spoke more openly. In all cases, however, it was refreshing to interview politicians who are not subject to the communicative constraints of top candidates and cannot call up a repertoire of phrases at the touch of a button.

In the second part of the survey, we embarked on a tour of the country. Every day, Styria was examined on the basis of a statistic and a corresponding municipality was visited. We started off in Miesenbach near Birkfeld, where the proportion of Austrians is highest. In Stattegg, people earn the most on average, while in Mürzzuschlag we encountered a great deal of optimism despite high levels of emigration (primarily due to the Semmering Tunnel). The least populated Hirschegg-Pack is also doing well.

The southern Styrian municipality of Lebring-St. Margarethen is able to realize a lot thanks to high municipal taxes. We looked into the question of why building plot prices in Fehring are still comparatively low and how the industrial crisis is making itself felt in Leoben.

View of home is largely positive
Further excursions took us to the tourist stronghold of Schladming, to the new Graz district of Reininghaus, where 12,000 people are expected to live in the future, to the commuters in Stainz and to Mühlen, where the highest number of births in relation to the population was recorded in the previous year. The tour ended with "exotic" dairy farmers in the wine-growing village of Leutschach and Kalwang, where the proportion of women is highest.

We met many different people. What unites almost all of them is a fundamentally positive view of their homeland - in contrast to the often negative mood in the country. On a small scale, many things seem to work well in Styria and there is a great deal of cohesion. This gives us hope for a good future in white-green.