Austria’s right-wing extremist Freedom Party is heading for its first national election victory

Austria’s far-right Freedom Party was on track for its first victory in a national parliamentary election on Sunday, finishing ahead of the ruling Conservatives after capitalizing on voters’ worries about immigration, inflation, Ukraine and other concerns, a forecast showed . But his chances of governing were unclear.

An extrapolation by public broadcaster ORF television, based on counting more than half of the votes, showed that the Freedom Party was at 29.2 percent and Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party was at 26.3 percent. The center-left Social Democrats were in third place with 20.5 percent.

Herbert Kickl, a former interior minister and long-time campaign strategist who has led the Freedom Party since 2021, wants to become Austria’s new chancellor after the first right-wing extremist election victory in Austria since the Second World War.