Trust in politics in Austria at a low point
The “Democracy Monitor”, for which the SORA Institute is responsible, sees trust in Austria’s political system at its lowest point since the survey began in 2018.
58 percent of them are currently convinced that it works less or not at all. Confidence has fallen in all sections of the population, but the loss of confidence is greater in the upper and middle income thirds of society, according to a press conference on Tuesday.
System confidence was already well below the value of the previous year in late summer / autumn (survey period August to October). For 46 percent around 2,000 online and phone calls from the positive (people aged 16 and over living in Austria) it was in the negative range, for 52 percent it was still in the. The advertising affair that really got going and the renewed lockdown then exacerbated the development again. In a follow-up survey (among around 500 people in November and December) only 41 percent saw the political system work very or fairly well, 58 percent assessed it as less or not at all.
In the previous years, the result was still positive, in 2020 it was 66 to 32 percent, in 2019 it was 51 to 45 and in 2018 it was 64 to 33 percent.
“Level of Romania”
“Confidence in the Austrian political system has collapsed very badly,” said Günther Ogris from SORA, summarizing the result: “We have reached the level of Romania, that is, really deep in the basement.” For the government’s other policymakers, it is high time for a fresh start.
In the lower income third of society, trust in the political system has been lower since the survey began in 2018 and is less dependent on current events, according to study author Martina Zandonella. Currently, just under a third (31 percent) of people in the bottom third think that the political system is working well – compared to 42 percent in the middle and 54 percent in the top third. To contradict the democratic principle of political equality and be related to the least trust.
In the wake of the corona pandemic, according to SORA, people from the middle and the upper third of society have now also experienced that their living conditions are being given less attention in politics. For the time before 70 percent of people in the top third and 57 percent of people in the middle report that political decisions also took their circumstances into account. However, only 51 percent of the top third and 38 percent of the middle think about pandemic control measures.
Advertisement affair
According to SORA, system trust also suffered from the advertising affair: Currently around 90 percent of people are convinced that the Austrian one has a corruption problem. Corruption is not only associated with individual people or parties: 41 percent of people assume that what the chats around ex-ÖVP boss Sebastian Kurz showed is typical for all parties. According to the researcher, the damage caused by such derailments is not just borne by the direct participants, but also by the entire political system.
Still, 88 percent of the people in Austria think that democracy – despite some problems – is the best form of government. This value was also largely constant over the survey years, it said. 75 percent are in favor of strengthening democracy, but at the moment these voices are very quiet because the discussion about the pandemic measures is so much in the foreground, i.e. Zandonella.