Data shows that Austria’s far-right Freedom Party takes the lead in the elections

Flag of Austria | Image: Wikimedia Commons

5 minutes of reading Last update: September 29, 2024 | 23:20 IST

The projection showed the far-right Freedom Party gaining an advantage over the ruling conservatives in Austria’s national elections on Sunday and was well-positioned for its first victory in the parliamentary vote. However, his chances of ruling were unclear.

A forecast by public television ORF, based on partial counts, shows that in the parliamentary elections support for the Freedom Party was 29.1 percent and for Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party – 26.3 percent. The center-left Social Democrats were in third place with 20.9 percent.

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Herbert Kickl, the former interior minister and long-time campaign strategist who leads the Freedom Party from 2021, wants to become Austria’s new chancellor after the far-right’s first victory in Austria’s national elections after World War II.

But to become Austria’s new leader, he would need a coalition partner with a majority in the lower house of parliament, and rivals say they will not cooperate with Kickel in government.

The voter has spoken. Changes are needed in our country,” said Freedom Party Secretary General Michael Schnedlitz, although he admitted that “we don’t have the final result yet.

Christian Stocker, general secretary of the People’s Party, admitted that we did not take first place, but said that his party had come back after lower results in the polls. He also repeated Nehammer’s refusal to form a coalition with Kickel, which happened yesterday, is happening today and will continue to do so tomorrow.

More than 6.3 million people aged 16 and over were eligible to vote for the new parliament in Austria, a European Union member state with a policy of military neutrality.

Kickl has achieved a turnaround since Austria’s last parliamentary elections in 2019. In June, the Freedom Party narrowly won the nationwide vote for the first time in the European Parliament elections, which also benefited other European far-right parties.

In 2019, her support dropped to 16.2%. after the scandal that toppled the government in which she was a junior coalition partner. Then-vice chancellor and leader of the Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache, resigned after publishing a secretly recorded video in which he appeared to offer favors to an alleged Russian investor.

The far right has exploited voters’ frustration with high inflation, the war in Ukraine and the Covid pandemic. It is also based on concerns about migration.

In its election program titled Fortress Austria, the Freedom Party calls for the re-emigration of uninvited foreigners to achieve a more homogeneous nation through strict border control and the suspension of the right to asylum through an emergency law.

The Freedom Party also calls for an end to sanctions against Russia, is very critical of Western military aid to Ukraine and wants to withdraw from the European Air Shield Initiative – an anti-missile defense project – launched by Germany.

The leader of the Social Democrats, the party that led many Austrian governments after World War II, positioned himself as the complete opposite of Kickel. Andreas Babler ruled out governing with the far right and described Kickel as a threat to democracy.

Although the Freedom Party was revived, the popularity of Nehammer’s People’s Party has been declining since 2019, and it currently leads a coalition government whose junior partners are Green ecologists.

During the election campaign, Nehammer presented his party, which has taken a tough stance on immigration in recent years, as a strong center that will guarantee stability in the face of numerous crises.

Under their leadership, Austria has recorded high inflation, averaging 4.2 percent over the past 12 months, above the EU average.

The government also angered many Austrians in 2022 by becoming the first European country to introduce a coronavirus vaccine requirement, which was scrapped months later and never implemented. Nehammer is the third chancellor since the last election and will take office in 2021 after predecessor Sebastian Kurz, the winner in 2019, left politics amid a corruption investigation.

However, the recent flooding caused by Storm Boris, which hit Austria and other Central European countries, once again involved the environment in the election debate and may have helped Nehammer slightly reduce the gap with the Freedom Party.

The People’s Party is the far right’s only path to government.

Nehammer has repeatedly ruled out joining the government led by Kickel, describing it as a threat to the country’s security, but he did not rule out a coalition with the Freedom Party itself, which would mean Kickel resigning from his position in the government.

The likelihood that Kickl will agree to such an agreement if he wins the elections is very low, Peter Filzmaier, one of Austria’s leading political scientists, said before the elections.

The most likely alternative would be an alliance of the People’s Party with the Social Democrats, with or without the liberal Neos.

(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard team; the rest of content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)

First publication: September 29, 2024 | 23:19 IST