Herbert Kickl, leader of Austria’s Freedom Party, celebrates with supporters, in Vienna, Sunday, September 29, 2024, after the polls closed in the country’s national elections.
Andreea Alexandru/AP
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Andreea Alexandru/AP
VIENNA – The Freedom Party secured its first far-right national parliamentary election victory in post-World War II Austria on Sunday, finishing ahead of the ruling conservatives after tapping into concerns over immigration, inflation, Ukraine and other issues. But the possibility of ruling is unclear.
Preliminary official results showed the Freedom Party finishing first with 29.2% of the vote and Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party second with 26.5%. The centre-left Social Democrats are in third place with 21%. The outgoing government – a coalition of Nehammer’s party and the environmental Greens – lost its majority in the lower house of parliament.
Herbert Kickl, a former interior minister and campaign strategist who has long led the Freedom Party from 2021, wants to be chancellor.
But to become Austria’s new leader, he needs a coalition partner to command a parliamentary majority. Rivals say they will not work with Kickl in government.
The right has benefited from frustration over high inflation, the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic. It has also been built on concerns about migration.
In its election program, entitled “Fortress Austria,” the Freedom Party called for “the remigration of uninvited foreigners,” to achieve a more “homogeneous” country by controlling borders and suspending the right to asylum through emergency laws.
The Freedom Party has also called for an end to sanctions against Russia, is highly critical of Western military aid to Ukraine and wants to scrap the European Sky Shield Initiative, a missile defense project launched by Germany. Kickl has criticized the “elites” in Brussels and called for some powers to be brought back from the EU to Austria.
“We do not need to change our position, because we have said that we are ready to lead the government, we are ready to continue this change in Austria together with the people,” Kickl said in an appearance. along with other party leaders on ORF public television. “The other side should ask themselves where they stand in democracy,” he said, saying they should “sleep on the results.”
Nehammer said it was “bittersweet” that his party missed out on first place, but noted that it came back from a lower poll ranking. He often said that he would not form a coalition with Kickl and said that “what I said before the election, I also said after the election.”
More than 6.3 million people are eligible to vote for the new parliament in Austria, an EU member with a policy of military neutrality.
Kickl has achieved change since the last parliamentary elections in Austria in 2019. In June, the Freedom Party narrowly won the national elections for the first time in the European Parliament elections, which also resulted in gains for other European right-wing parties.
Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, whose party dominates the new Dutch government, congratulated the Freedom Party on the X Sunday social network. So did Alice Weidel, one of the leaders of the Alternative for Germany party.
The Merdeka Party is a long-standing force, but Sunday’s result was its best in the national parliamentary elections, beating the 26.9% it scored in 1999.
In 2019, his support dropped to 16.2% after a scandal engulfed the government of his junior partner. The vice-chancellor and leader of the Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache, resigned after the publication of a secretly recorded video in which he was seen offering help to alleged Russian investors.
The leader of the Social Democrats, the party that presided over many of Austria’s post-World War II governments, positioned himself as the polar opposite of Kickl. Andreas Babler rejects the far-right government and labels Kickl “a threat to democracy.”
While the Freedom Party has recovered, the popularity of Nehammer’s People’s Party has dropped significantly compared to 2019. Support for the Greens, the coalition partner, has also dropped to 8%.
During the election campaign, Nehammer described his party, which has implemented immigration in recent years, as a “strong center” that would ensure stability in many crises.
But crises ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have led to rising energy prices and inflation as well as support costs. The government has also angered many Austrians in 2022 with a short-lived coronavirus vaccine mandate, a first in Europe.
But the recent floods caused by Storm Boris that hit Austria and other countries may have helped Nehammer narrow the gap a bit as a crisis manager.
The People’s Party is the only path on the right to government, and now holds the key to forming any administration.
Nehammer has repeatedly ruled out joining a government led by Kickl, describing him as a “security risk” for the country, but has not ruled out a coalition with his own Freedom Party – which would have led Kickl to reject his post in the government. But that seems highly unlikely with the Freedom Party in first place.
The alternative is an alliance between the People’s Party and the Social Democrats – with or without the liberal Neos, which took 9% of the vote.
A final official result will be published later in the week after a small number of postcards are still counted, but it will not change the result substantially.
About 300 protesters gathered outside the parliament building in Vienna Sunday afternoon, holding placards with slogans including “Kickl is a Nazi.”
