Chamber:
	Nationalrat
Dates of elections / renewal (from/to):
	24 November 2002
Purpose of elections:
	Elections were held for all the seats in the National Council following the premature dissolution of this body in September 2002. General elections had previously been held on 3 October 1999.
Background and outcome of elections:
	At the beginning of September 2002, the governing coalition formed by the Freedom Party and the People's Party broke up. Its collapse became final when Vice Chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer of the Freedom Party resigned from the party leadership. Elections were only due late in 2003 but on 22 September 2002, two days after Parliament voted in favour of dissolution, the Cabinet set 24 November 2002 as the date for elections. In the run-up to the election, the government launched a massive campaign against those deemed to be seeking asylum for "economic" reasons. It appeared to political analysts that Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel had led his conservative People's Party to be the one and only party of the right, offering Freedom Party voters many of the same policies but in less controversial hands. The Social Democrats also repositioned themselves before the elections, savaging the neo-liberal policies of their former conservative coalition partners. Much attention was also focused on the expected performance of the Freedom Party, which had scored some 27 per cent of the votes in the 1999 election. The final results showed that the People's Party had scored a sweeping victory in the elections with 42.27 per cent of the votes as against 26.91 per cent in 1999. This percentage gave the party a total of 79 seats, 27 more than in the outgoing Parliament. The Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) obtained 36.90 per cent of the votes and 69 seats, 4 more than in 1999. The Freedom Party slumped dramatically, losing 33 seats and more than 16 per cent of their share of the votes. The remaining 16 seats went to the Green Party, which had won 5 in 1999. Although the People's Party scored its biggest electoral success in two decades, it did not gain enough votes to form a government on its own and had to start talks on forming a new coalition. The National Council held its first sitting on 20 December 2002 and elected Dr. Andreas Khol as its new Speaker.

STATISTICS

Round no 1 (24 November 2002): Elections results
Number of registered electors	5 912 592
Voters	4 982 261 (84.27 %)
Blank or invalid ballot papers	72 616
Valid votes	4 909 645

Round no 1: Distribution of votes
Political Group	Votes	%
People's Party (ÖVP)	2 076 833	42.27
Social Democratic Party (SPÖ)	1 792 499	36.51
Freedom Party (FPÖ)	491 328	10.01
Greens	464 980	9.47

Round no 1: Distribution of seats
Political Group	Total
People's Party (ÖVP)	79
Social Democratic Party (SPÖ)	69
Freedom Party (FPÖ)	18
Greens	17

Distribution of seats according to sex:
Men:	121
Women:	62
Percent of women:	33.88

Distribution of seats according to age:
21 to 30 years	3
31 to 40 years	24
41 to 50 years	82
51 to 60 years	65
61 to 70 years	9