The extreme right in Austria secures a historic election victory

Austria’s far-right Freedom Party won a historic victory in Sunday’s parliamentary election. The result consolidated pro-Russian, anti-establishment forces in Central Europe.

According to a near-final official estimate of the vote late Sunday, the FPÖ was expected to win just under 29 percent of the votes cast, bolstering the claim of its fiery leader Herbert Kickl to become Austria’s next chancellor.

It is the first time that the FPÖ, which has pursued increasingly harsh and extremist policies on immigration and the war in Ukraine under Kickl in recent years, has taken first place in a federal election.

The breakthrough is the latest in a string of strong performances from Europe’s far right – particularly in France and the Netherlands – and underscores how the continent’s mainstream parties are struggling to respond to a range of economic and social challenges.

Kickl sympathizes with Russia and is a sharp critic of EU support for Ukraine. He blames the Union’s stance for the cost of living crisis in Europe.

“Jörg Haider would be proud of us,” Kickl told enthusiastic supporters in Vienna, referring to the former FPÖ leader whose best result from 1999 was eclipsed on Sunday. “The voters have declared their will,” he added.

The FPÖ has been at the top of nationwide opinion polls for almost two years, but the party’s victory was bigger than expected.

The moderate-conservative ÖVP, which governs in a coalition with the Greens, secured around 26 percent of the vote.

This meant that the ÖVP came second in the election and lost a lot of ground, but was able to retain its core vote, while the Greens suffered a heavy defeat. The Social Democrats were on track to win just 21 percent of the vote, their worst result ever.

An intensive negotiation phase now follows to form a new coalition government.

The FPÖ’s strong performance may paradoxically reduce its chances of taking power, as the ÖVP may be unwilling to consider a role as a junior partner in a coalition.

Instead, the ÖVP could try to form a grand coalition with the Social Democrats and the liberal Neos, although this could prove difficult due to the stark political differences.

While the ÖVP and FPÖ have more common policy positions, Kickl is seen by many in the moderate conservative party, which has dominated Austrian politics for 70 years, as an impossible figure to work with.

“We have clearly expressed what we stand for: centrist politics and stability,” said ÖVP leader Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Sunday.

“What I said before the election, I will say after the election,” he added, referring to previous statements about not forming a coalition in which Kickl had a ministerial role.

Kickl was Interior Minister from 2017 to 2019 in a coalition government led by the ÖVP under Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

That alliance collapsed after the FPÖ leadership was filmed in a covert operation at a luxury villa in Ibiza, seeking alleged Russian political support.

Although Kickl was not involved in the scandal, he was forced out of government and there remains deep mistrust between him and the ÖVP leadership.

Many in the ÖVP are uncomfortable with the course that Kickl has taken in the FPÖ since taking office in 2021.

Kickl expressed his willingness to break taboos about the country’s Nazi past as part of his election campaign strategy.

He has helped bring back into the party figures that even previous FPÖ leaders considered too extreme – for example from the Austrian Identitarian Movement, which espouses radical views on race and culture.

During his summer campaign, Kickl repeatedly referred to himself as the “People’s Chancellor” or “People’s Chancellor” – a term with a long political history but one most often associated with Adolf Hitler.

Kickl and his followers would reject any notion that he was a Nazi.

But people familiar with his campaign style said that, following the script of Haider, for whom Kickl worked as a speechwriter, he was willing to goad his opponents even on sensitive issues, portraying them as censorious and oversensitive.

Such tactics not only complicate potential relations with the ÖVP, but also make Kickl an unpleasant figure for Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, who will appoint the next government.

Although his office plays a largely ceremonial role in the day-to-day management of Austrian government affairs, Van der Bellen appoints each member of the cabinet individually.

It is just tradition for the largest party to nominate a chancellor, and Van der Bellen has made no secret of his dislike of Kickl, hinting that he might refuse to appoint him as a minister in the past.

“The formation of a grand coalition [between the ÖVP and the Social Democrats] is being pushed strongly by Van der Bellen,” said Marcus How, head of research at VE Insight, a Vienna-based political risk consultancy.

He added that this was a “gamble” because it would give the FPÖ even more arguments to “rant” against the political establishment, which is allied against the party.