Austria’s far-right Freedom Party is headed for its first victory in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, finishing ahead of the ruling Conservative Party after successfully tapping into voters’ fears over immigration, inflation, Ukraine and other concerns, forecasts show. . However, the prospects for governance remained uncertain.
ORF public television’s forecast, based on more than half of the votes counted, puts the Freedom Party at 29.2% and Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party at 26.3%. The center-left Social Democratic Party came in third with 20.5%.
Herbert Kickle, a former interior minister who has been in charge of election strategy for many years and who has been leading the Freedom Party since 2021, said that Austria’s new He hopes to become prime minister.
But Austria’s new leader will need a coalition partner with a majority in the lower house of parliament, and rival factions have said they will not work with Mr Kickl in government.
The far right is capitalizing on voter discontent over high inflation, the war in Ukraine and the coronavirus pandemic. Concerns about migration are also growing.
In its election plan entitled “Fortress Austria”, the Freedom Party has set out to create a more “homogeneous” nation by strictly controlling borders and suspending the right to asylum through emergency legislation. calls for the immigration of foreigners.
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The Liberal Party also calls for an end to sanctions against Russia, is highly critical of Western military aid to Ukraine, and wants to reject participation from the European Skyshield initiative, a missile defense project launched by Germany. That’s what I think. Kickle criticized the “elites” in Brussels and called for some power to be transferred from the European Union back to Austria.
“We don’t have to change our position because we have always said that we are ready to lead the government and together with the people we are ready to drive this change in Austria,” Kickl said at a news conference. Alongside other party leaders of the ORF. “Other political parties should ask themselves where they stand in terms of democracy,” he added, “and they should sleep on the results.”
Nehammer said it was “bitter” that his party lost the top spot, but said it had brought the party back from low support in the polls. He has repeatedly said he has no intention of forming a coalition with Kickle, saying: “What I said before the election, I will say after the election.”
In Austria, an EU member state with a policy of military neutrality, more than 6.3 million people over the age of 16 were eligible to vote in the new parliament.
Kickl has made the best turnaround since the last Austrian parliamentary election in 2019. In June’s European Parliament elections, the Liberal Party narrowly won its first national vote, handing victories to other far-right parties in Europe. The party is a political powerhouse with a long history, but Sunday’s predicted results, if confirmed, would be the highest ever for a parliamentary election, surpassing the party’s 26.9% in 1999.
In 2019, his approval rating dropped to 16.2% after his junior coalition partner collapsed in a scandal. Heinz-Christian Strache, deputy chancellor and leader of the Freedom Party at the time, resigned after a secretly recorded video appeared to show him favoring an alleged Russian investor.
The leader of the Social Democratic Party, which led many Austrian governments after World War II, positioned himself as the exact opposite of Kickl. Andreas Babler rejected far-right rule and called Kickle a “threat to democracy”.
While the Liberal Party has rebounded, the popularity of the Nehama People’s Party, which currently leads a coalition government with the environmentalist Green Party as a junior partner, has fallen sharply compared to 2019. The Green Party’s approval rating was also predicted to fall to just under 9%. The outgoing coalition government appeared to be well short of a majority.
During his campaign, Nehammer portrayed his party, which has taken a hard line on immigration in recent years, as a “strong centrist” guarantee of stability amid multiple crises.
But crises like these, from the COVID-19 pandemic to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting rise in energy prices and inflation, have taken a toll on aid. The government also angered many Austrians by quickly mandating Europe’s first coronavirus vaccine in 2022.
But recent flooding caused by Storm Boris, which hit Austria and other countries in central Europe, may have brought the environment back into the electoral debate and helped narrow Mr Nehammer’s lead slightly.
The People’s Party is the only way for the far right to come to power.
Nehammer has repeatedly ruled out joining a government led by Kickle, saying he is a “security risk” to the country, but has not ruled out a coalition with the Liberal Party per se. That would mean Mr. Kickel relinquishing his government position.
Renowned political scientist Peter Filzmeyer said before the election that it was highly unlikely that Kickle would agree to such a deal if he won.
The most likely alternative would be an alliance between the People’s Party and the Social Democrats, with or without the liberal Neos, which received around 9% of the vote.