President of Austria
The president of Austria is the head of state of the Republic of Austria.
The office of the president was established in 1920 by the Constituent National Assembly of the first republic following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Habsburg monarchy in 1918. As head of state, the president indirectly succeeded the emperor of Austria. The power and role of the presidency has varied drastically over time. During the early first republic, the president was an utterly powerless figurehead. After a 1929 amendment, the president's powers were greatly expanded on paper, but they were swiftly taken away again following the abrogation of the Constitution and the erection of a corporatist dictatorship in 1934. When Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, the presidency was completely abolished. Following the liberation of Austria by the allied forces in 1945, the republican Constitution was restored and so was the office of the president. Though the president nominally regained the broad power vested in him under the 1929 amendments, the president voluntarily chose to serve as a ceremonial and symbolic figurehead, allowing the chancellor to remain de facto chief executive instead. Since the institution of the popular vote in 1951, only nominees of the Social Democratic Party and the People's Party were elected to the presidency, until Green-endorsed incumbent Alexander Van der Bellen won it in 2017.
The most notable presidential power is the appointment of the chancellor, the vice chancellor and the ministers, which collectively form the Cabinet of Austria. The president also signs bills into law, appoints the justices of the Supreme Courts, signs treaties and exercises various ceremonial duties. Additionally, the president is empowered to remove the chancellor and the Cabinet, dissolve the National Council and the State Legislatures, rule by decree and oversee the Armed Forces but these powers have never or rarely been used. The president ranks first in Austria's order of precedence, ahead of the Presidium of the National Council and the chancellor.
The workplace and official residence of the president is located in the Leopoldine Wing of the Hofburg Imperial Palace in Vienna.
History
Background
Prior to the collapse of the multinational Austro-Hungarian Empire towards the end of World War I, what now is the Republic of Austria had been part of a monarchy with an emperor as its head of state and chief executive. The empire noticeably began to fracture in late 1917 and manifestly disintegrated into a number of independent rump states over the course of the following year.As the emperor had grown practically powerless, the members of the lower chamber of the Imperial Council – representing Cisleithania, including the empire's ethnically German provinces – formed a Provisional National Assembly for their paralyzed country on 21 October 1918. On 30 October, the National Assembly passed the Staatsgründungsbeschluss, the law that proclaimed the creation of German-Austria and served as its provisional constitution. Additionally, the National Assembly appointed three coequal chairmen, one of them being Karl Seitz, and established a State Council to administer the executive branch. For about two weeks, the Empire and German-Austria co-existed, having a roughly similar population and territory.
On 11 November, Emperor Charles I dissolved the Imperial Cabinet and officially renounced any participation in government affairs but did not abdicate, seeing this move only as a temporary break from his rule. However, the next day, the National Assembly proclaimed German-Austria to be a republic. Despite the effective dissolution of the Empire, the monarchy officially still continued to exist and Emperor Charles I continued exercising ceremonial powers as German-Austria refused to be seen as the successor to Austria-Hungary and thus the monarchy was not legally abolished; only following the passage of the Habsburg Law in April 1919, the monarchy formally ceased to exist and Charles I was dethroned and exiled.
The State Council assumed the remaining powers and responsibilities of the emperor, while the three assembly chairmen – as chairmen of the State Council – became the country's collective head of state.
Establishment
On 4 March 1919, the Constituent National Assembly, the first parliament to be elected by universal suffrage, convened and named Seitz its chairman a day later. The National Assembly disbanded the State Council on 15 March – hence Seitz became the sole head of state – and began drafting a new Constitution the same year. The Christian Social Party advocated creating a presidency with comprehensive executive powers, similar to the presidency of the Weimar Republic. However, the Social Democratic Worker's Party, fearing that such a president would become a "substitute emperor", favored reverting to a parliamentary presidium acting as collective head of state. In the end, the framers of the Constitution opted for a compromise, creating a presidency that was separate from the legislature but lacked even nominal power.On 1 October, the Federal Constitutional Law, the centerpiece of the new Constitution, was ratified by the National Assembly and on 10 November, it became effective, making Seitz president of Austria in all but name. The new Constitution established the president to be elected by the Federal Assembly, a joint session of both houses of the now-bicameral Parliament. On 9 December 1920, the Federal Assembly elected Michael Hainisch as the first official president of Austria.
First Republic
The parliamentary system erected by the new Constitution was highly unpopular with the majority of the population. This led to surging support for the authoritarian and paramilitary Heimwehr movement, which preferred a system that strengthens presidential authority. On 7 December 1929, under growing pressure from the Heimwehr, the Constitution was amended to give the president sweeping executive and legislative power. Although most of these powers were to be exercised through the ministers, on paper the president now had powers equivalent to those of presidents in presidential systems. It also called for the office to be elected by popular vote and expanded the president's term to six years. The first election was scheduled for 1934. However, owing to the financial ramifications of the Great Depression, all parties agreed to suspend the election in favor of having Wilhelm Miklas reelected by the Federal Assembly.Three years later, Engelbert Dollfuss and the Fatherland Front tore down Austrian parliamentarism altogether, formally annulling the Constitution on 1 May 1934. It was replaced by an authoritarian and corporatist system of government that concentrated power in the hands of the chancellor, not the president. Miklas was stripped of the authority he had gained in 1929, but agreed to act as a figurehead for the sake of institutional continuity anyway. He was not entirely powerless, however; during the Anschluss crisis, he provided some of the stiffest resistance to Nazi demands. He technically remained in office until 13 March 1938, the day Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany and thus lost its sovereignty. The annexation was legally formalised after Austria and Germany simultaneously passed what was effectively the same law; a plebiscite with 99% support was intended to give the Anschluss additional democratic legitimacy.
Second Republic
When Austria was re-established as an independent state on 27 April 1945, the party leaders forming the provisional cabinet decided not to write a new constitution, instead reverting to that of 1920, as amended in 1929. Even though this revision was still somewhat controversial at that point, it was part of Austria's most recent constitutional framework, giving it at least some much-needed form of democratic legitimacy. The party leaders were also afraid that lengthy discussion might provoke the Red Army, then in control of Vienna, to barge in and impose Communist rule. The Constitution thus reenacted, effective 1 May, therefore still entailed the provision calling for popular election of the president. Following the November 1945 legislative election, however, the Federal Assembly temporarily suspended this provision and installed Karl Renner as president of Austria as of 20 December. The suspension in question seemed to have been motivated mainly by a lack of money; no attempt was ever made to prolong it, and Renner had already been the universally accepted, de facto head of state anyway. Starting with the 1951 election of Renner's successor Theodor Körner, all presidents have in fact been elected by the people.Since the restoration of the republic, presidents have taken an increasingly passive role in day-to-day politics and are rarely ever the focus of the press, except during presidential elections and political upheavals. A notable exception was Kurt Waldheim, who became the subject of national and international controversy, after his service in the Wehrmacht and the Sturmabteilung were revealed to the public. Another exception was Thomas Klestil, who attempted to assume a far more active political role; he called for the grand coalition to remain in power and demanded to represent Austria in the European Council but ultimately failed on both counts.
Alexander Van der Bellen became the first president not affiliated with either of the two dominant parties – the Social Democratic Party and the People's Party – and the first president to dismiss a chancellor as well as an entire Cabinet as a result of a parliamentary ouster.
Election
Procedure
The president of Austria is elected by popular vote for a term of six years and is limited to two consecutive terms of office. Voting is open to all people entitled to vote in general parliamentary elections, which in practice means that suffrage is universal for all Austrian citizens over the age of sixteen that have not been convicted of a jail term of more than one year of imprisonment.Until 1 October 2011, with the exception of members of any ruling or formerly ruling dynastic houses, anyone entitled to vote in elections to the National Council who is at least 35 years of age is eligible for the office of president. The exception of ruling or formerly ruling dynasties has been abolished meanwhile within the Wahlrechtsänderungsgesetz 2011 due to an initiative by Ulrich Habsburg-Lothringen.
The president is elected under the two-round system. This means that if no candidate receives an absolute majority of valid votes cast in the first round, then a second ballot occurs in which only those two candidates who received the greatest number of votes in the first round may stand. However, the constitution also provides that the group that nominates one of these two candidates may instead nominate an alternative candidate in the second round. If there is only one candidate standing in a presidential election then the electorate is granted the opportunity to either accept or reject the candidate in a referendum.
While in office the president cannot belong to an elected body or hold any other position.