The ÖVP surprisingly selected former Interior Minister Ernst Strasser to lead their party.

[3] At the Greens' party congress on 17–18 January 2009, long-time MEP Johannes Voggenhuber was not selected for the first place on the party list, with Ulrike Lunacek being elected instead; Voggenhuber had announced he would not stand in any other place on the list and thus will withdraw from politics after the election.

[6] It was announced in late January that he might stand in the 16th place on the list, making it possible for him to be ranked first in preferences with more than 7% of the Greens' votes in the election.

The party leadership rejected this possibility in a meeting on 30 January 2009, angering many of the Greens' supporters.

[8] The BZÖ picked Ewald Stadler to head their list;[9] they did not want to run together with the Libertas Party, but stated that they were interested in cooperation after the election.