New Austrian Election Reforms Would Eliminate Jewish Political Parties

The Jewish population of Austria will in the future adopt the western method of supporting candidates of the general political parties, instead of putting forward their own candidates on the tickets of Jewish parties. This innovation will come about through changes in the Austrian Constitution.

In his address before Parliament yesterday, Premier Schober intimated that there would be Constitutional reforms concerning election procedure for representatives to Parliament and municipality heads. As a result Jewish participation as a separate unit in the political life of the country would be impossible since the new election procedure will reduce the number of members to be elected, necessitating a greater number of votes per mandate. On the calculation the united vote of all Austrian Jewry would not be sufficient to elect one deputy to Parliament.