Vienna before the election: Democracy in danger from falling eligibility!

Vienna before the election: Democracy in danger from falling eligibility!

Wien, Österreich - Vienna fights with a troubling decline in voters. As the Kleine Zeitung in 2023 was only 66.6 percent, which means that more than a third of the Population of the eligible age must not choose. This number is particularly alarming, since in 2002 only 15.9 percent of Viennese over 16 years were entitled to vote and this proportion has doubled to 33.4 percent to date.

demographic inequalities and political participation

A look at the Situation shows that the proportion of people who are not entitled to vote varies greatly regionally. The districts of favorites and Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus are particularly affected, where over 40 percent of the population are excluded from the right to vote due to their citizenship. In central favorites, more than half of those over 16 are not allowed to choose. This goes hand in hand with a democratic deficit, as well as the Viennese integration monitoring based on wien.gv.at . Access to the right to vote is limited to Austrian citizens, while EU citizens are only entitled to vote at the district level.

people living in Vienna who do not have Austrian citizenship are increasingly difficult to represent their interests politically. This particularly affects the younger generations in which a significant part must not participate in elections. A change in this political frustration could only be achieved by a reform of the citizenship guidelines, since the requirements for naturalization are currently very restrictive, as in the city government is listed. An increasing interest in political rights of co -determination could counteract this grievance, but so far the way there has been stony.