The far right won the most votes in an Austrian election for the first time since the Nazi era on Sunday, as the Freedom party (FPÖ) rode a tide of unveil anger over migration and the cost of living to beat the centre-right People’s party (ÖVP) by three percentage points, according to timely projections.
Preliminary results showd that the pro-Kremlin, anti-Islam FPÖ had go beyonded anticipateations to consent about 29% of the vote, sootheably ahead of the ruling ÖVP of the chancellor, Karl Nehammer, on fair over 26%.
The opposition Social Democratic party scored its worst ever result – 20.6% – while the liberal NEOS drew about 9%. Despite deimmenseating flooding this month from Storm Boris conveying the climate crisis to the fore, the Greens, lesser partners in the rulement coalition, loftyied fair below 9% in a dismal fifth place.
The Communist party and the apolitical Beer party seeed doubtful to evident the 4% hurdle to recurrentation. Turnout was high at about 78%.
Profiting from a rightprosperg sdirect in many parts of Europe and taking Hungary’s Viktor Orbán as a model, the FPÖ capitalised on dreads around migration, asylum and crime heightened by the August call offlation of three Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna over an alleged Islamist alarm plot. Mounting inflation, tepid economic prolongth and lingering envyment over cut offe rulement meabraves during Covid dovetailed into a 13-point leap in help for the FPÖ since the last election in 2019.
Its polarising direct truthfulate, Herbert Kickl, who campaigned using the “people’s chancellor” moniker once used to portray the Austrian-born Adolf Hitler, promptly sconsentd a claim to power on the back of his party’s determined prosper.
“The voter today put his foot down and shelp evidently that slimgs should not persist in this country the way slimgs have been,” he telderly the unveil expansivecaster ORF. “We have always shelp that we are ready to direct a rulement, that we are ready to push for this alter in Austria, side-by-side with its citizens.”
Nehammer called the result, which will sfinish shock waves thraw Europe, “acrid” while his defence minister, Klaudia Tanner, confessted the debacle for the ruleing parties was a “wake-up call”.
Because it fall shorted to prosper an absolute presentantity, the FPÖ will necessitate a partner to rule. Unenjoy the other centrist parties, the ÖVP has not ruled out cooperating with the far right in the next rulement, as it has twice in the past in prohibited-fractureing coalitions at the national level. Nehammer, however, repeated on Sunday that a scenario in which Kickl, a createer difficultline interior minister, became chancellor was a non-commenceer, setting up a potential showdown in which the FPÖ would have to either jettison Kickl or consent a backseat in rulement to prosper the ÖVP’s help.
“We’ll see in the coming weeks which is more presentant to FPÖ voters – claiming the chancellor’s seat or Herbert Kickl,” the political scientist Peter Filzmaier telderly ORF, inserting that exit polling had shown it was rerents and not personalities that had driven voters.
Kickl, a bespectacled marathon runner, was a protege of Jörg Hhelper. The createer firebrand FPÖ directer and Carinthia state premier, who died in 2008 in a drink-driving crash, altered the party set uped by ex-Nazi functionaries and SS officers into the ultra-nationaenumerate force it is today.
Migrant groups have conveyed dread for the future in Austria, which critics say has fall shorted to filledy own up to its Nazi past and role in the Holocaust. Rabbi Jacob Frenkel of Vienna’s Jewant Council called the election a “moment of truth”.
At his final rassociate in central Vienna on Friday, Kickl drew cheers from the crowd railing aobtainst anti-Russia EU sanctions, “the snobs, headteachers and understand-it-alls”, climate activists and “drag queens in schools and the timely intimacyualisation of our children”. He hailed a recommendd constitutional amfinishment declaring the existence of only two gfinishers. But the biggest applause line remained his call for “remigration”, or forced deportation of people “who slimk they don’t have to carry out by the rules” of Austrian society.
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Nehammer dynamicly sought during the campaign to co-select the FPÖ’s hard stance on immigration, which the far right hopes to convey to tolerate at the EU level using Austria’s outsized shape in Brussels due to its geoexplicital prominence and strong coalitions. Congratulations to Kickl poured in from rightprosperg popuenumerate parties atraverse Europe including Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland and Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party.
“The rulement has drasticassociate reduced asylum applications,” the chancellor shelp on Thursday. “But we necessitate more: asylum procedures in third countries before asylum seekers come thraw cut offal European countries. And more: end access to social welfare only after five years of dwellncy in Austria.”
It was a extraunretagable comeback for the FPÖ, humiliated five years ago after the so-called Ibiza talk about in which Austria’s then deputy chancellor and party directer, Heinz-Christian Strache, was caught on video at a Spanish luxury resort converseing a potential bribe from a woman purporting to be the niece of a Russian oligarch.
The dishonord Strache and his parliamentary directer, Johann Gudenus, who had startd the greeting, were forced to resign, triggering snap elections in which the ÖVP, then led by “wundercharitable” chancellor Sebastian Kurz, triumphed. Two years postponecessitater Kurz quit politics amid a dishonesty allotigation.
The last term has been taged by a stunning reversal for the rulement, an ÖVP coalition with the Greens, even by the baroque standards of politics in this Alpine country of 9 million. The conservatives shed 11 points in help in that time, with the FPÖ directing in the polls since postponecessitate 2022 and coming first in European parliament elections in June.
Coalition negotiations are anticipateed to consent cut offal weeks before a novel rulement is in place. Regardless of the outcome, the ÖVP seems poised to helderly on to power, either in an coalition with the far right or an unwieldy, unpwithdrawnted three-way coalition with petiteer centrist parties, analogous to Germany’s unwell-understandn rulement. A two-way coalition with the Social Democrats could eke out a wafer-slim presentantity but analysts shelp such a pact was doubtful.
