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 public anger over migration and the cost of living to beat the centre-right People’s party (ÖVP) by three percentage points, according to early projections.
Preliminary results indicated that the pro-Kremlin, anti-Islam FPÖ had surpassed expectations to take about 29% of the vote, comfortably ahead of the ruling ÖVP of the chancellor, Karl Nehammer, on just over 26%.
The opposition Social Democratic party scored its worst ever result – 20.6% – while the liberal NEOS drew about 9%. Despite devastating flooding this month from Storm Boris bringing the climate crisis to the fore, the Greens, junior partners in the government coalition, tallied just below 9% in a dismal fifth place.
The Communist party and the apolitical Beer party looked unlikely to clear the 4% hurdle to representation. Turnout was high at about 78%.
Profiting from a rightwing surge in many parts of Europe and taking Hungary’s Viktor Orbán as a model, the FPÖ capitalised on fears around migration, asylum and crime heightened by the August cancellation of three Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna over an alleged Islamist terror plot. Mounting inflation, tepid economic growth and lingering resentment over strict government measures during Covid dovetailed into a 13-point leap in support for the FPÖ since the last election in 2019.
Its polarising lead candidate, Herbert Kickl, who campaigned using the “people’s chancellor” moniker once used to describe the Austrian-born Adolf Hitler, immediately staked a claim to power on the back of his party’s decisive win.
“The voter today put his foot down and said clearly that things should not continue in this country the way things have been,” he told the public broadcaster ORF. “We have always said that we are ready to lead a government, that we are ready to push for this change in Austria, side-by-side with its citizens.”
Nehammer called the result, which will send shock waves through Europe, “bitter” while his defence minister, Klaudia Tanner, admitted the debacle for the governing parties was a “wake-up call”.
Because it failed to win an absolute majority, the FPÖ will need a partner to govern. Unlike the other centrist parties, the ÖVP has not ruled out cooperating with the far right in the next government, as it has twice in the past in taboo-breaking alliances at the national level. Nehammer, however, repeated on Sunday that a scenario in which Kickl, a former hardline interior minister, became chancellor was a non-starter, setting up a potential showdown in which the FPÖ would have to either jettison Kickl or take a backseat in government to win the ÖVP’s support.
“We’ll see in the coming weeks which is more important to FPÖ voters – claiming the chancellor’s seat or Herbert Kickl,” the political scientist Peter Filzmaier told ORF, adding that exit polling had shown it was issues and not personalities that had motivated voters.
Kickl, a bespectacled marathon runner, was a protege of Jörg Haider. The former firebrand FPÖ leader and Carinthia state premier, who died in 2008 in a drink-driving crash, transformed the party founded by ex-Nazi functionaries and SS officers into the ultra-nationalist force it is today.
Migrant groups have expressed fear for the future in Austria, which critics say has failed to fully own up to its Nazi past and role in the Holocaust. Rabbi Jacob Frenkel of Vienna’s Jewish Council called the election a “moment of truth”.
At his final rally in central Vienna on Friday, Kickl drew cheers from the crowd railing against anti-Russia EU sanctions, “the snobs, headteachers and know-it-alls”, climate activists and “drag queens in schools and the early sexualisation of our children”. He hailed a proposed constitutional amendment declaring the existence of only two genders. But the biggest applause line remained his call for “remigration”, or forced deportation of people “who think they don’t have to play by the rules” of Austrian society.
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Nehammer actively sought during the campaign to co-opt the FPÖ’s tough stance on immigration, which the far right hopes to bring to bear at the EU level using Austria’s outsized influence in Brussels due to its geographical prominence and strong alliances. Congratulations to Kickl poured in from rightwing populist parties across Europe including Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland and Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party.
“The government has drastically reduced asylum applications,” the chancellor said on Thursday. “But we need more: asylum procedures in third countries before asylum seekers come through several European countries. And more: complete access to social welfare only after five years of residency in Austria.”
It was a remarkable comeback for the FPÖ, humiliated five years ago after the so-called Ibiza scandal in which Austria’s then deputy chancellor and party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, was caught on video at a Spanish luxury resort discussing a potential bribe from a woman purporting to be the niece of a Russian oligarch.
The disgraced Strache and his parliamentary leader, Johann Gudenus, who had initiated the meeting, were forced to resign, triggering snap elections in which the ÖVP, then led by “wunderkind” chancellor Sebastian Kurz, triumphed. Two years later Kurz quit politics amid a corruption investigation.
The last term has been marked by a stunning reversal for the government, 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 support in that time, with the FPÖ leading in the polls since late 2022 and coming first in European parliament elections in June.
Coalition negotiations are expected to take several weeks before a new government is in place. Regardless of the outcome, the ÖVP seems poised to hold on to power, either in an alliance with the far right or an unwieldy, unprecedented three-way coalition with smaller centrist parties, similar to Germany’s unpopular government. A two-way alliance with the Social Democrats could eke out a wafer-thin majority but analysts said such a pact was unlikely.