Vienna Polling: Documenting the election night demonstration

On September 29th, 2024. a general election was held in Austria. To the surprise of no-one with an interest in Austrian politics, the country’s long-established far-right party, the “Freedom Party of Austria” (“Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs”, FPÖ), under the leadership of its chairman Herbert Kickl, won a majority of approximately 30% of the votes.

Only a few hours after the polling stations had closed and first results had been published, an anti-FPÖ demonstration began to take shape in Vienna.

Emerging from the outskirts, a crowd of several hundreds arrived in the city centre, with speeches and chants, and assembled in front of Austria’s parliament building.

Both the organisers and the police were clearly prepared for a predictable event following a predictable (and predicted) result.

Equally prepared were the members of the press:

And, of course, just as predictable as the election results and the subsequent protests were many of the prepared, if not downright recycled, slogans on display:

The protesters’ central statement was: lasst Nazis nicht regieren und niemals aufmarschieren (‘don’t let Nazis rule, nor ever let them march’).

Or, as this dog (was put to) put it, …

However topical and rehearsed most of the chants, emotions among the participants ran high:

In many ways a ritual, perhaps, rather than a sudden outburst of true and heartfelt emotion, and a demonstration (at least initially?) not joined by a substantial public as an expression of shock and disbelief, the event also served as a welcome (and welcomed) backdrop for a notorious Austrian (mock reality) TV character and comedian, “Influencer Dave”, whose placard “0x Leiwand” (‘zero times awesome’), calculated in its being devoid of both meaning and grammar, was impossible to miss, effectively providing a sideshow distraction to a largely staged event: