Herbert Kickl, chief of the Freedom Occasion of Austria, celebrates with supporters, in Vienna on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, after polls closed within the nation’s nationwide election.
Andreea Alexandru/AP
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Andreea Alexandru/AP
VIENNA — The Freedom Occasion secured the primary far-right nationwide parliamentary election victory in post-World Struggle II Austria on Sunday, ending forward of the governing conservatives after tapping into anxieties about immigration, inflation, Ukraine and different points. However its possibilities of governing had been unclear.
Preliminary official outcomes confirmed the Freedom Occasion ending first with 29.2% of the vote and Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Austrian Folks’s Occasion was second with 26.5%. The middle-left Social Democrats had been in third place with 21%. The outgoing authorities — a coalition of Nehammer’s social gathering and the environmentalist Greens — misplaced its majority within the decrease home of parliament.
Herbert Kickl, a former inside minister and longtime marketing campaign strategist who has led the Freedom Occasion since 2021, desires to be chancellor.
However to turn into Austria’s new chief, he would want a coalition accomplice to command a parliamentary majority. Rivals have mentioned they gained’t work with Kickl in authorities.
The far proper has benefited from frustration over excessive inflation, the warfare in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic. It has additionally constructed on worries about migration.
In its election program, titled “Fortress Austria,” the Freedom Occasion requires “remigration of uninvited foreigners,” for attaining a extra “homogeneous” nation by tightly controlling borders and suspending the precise to asylum through an emergency regulation.
The Freedom Occasion additionally requires an finish to sanctions towards Russia, is extremely important of Western army support to Ukraine and desires to bow out of the European Sky Protect Initiative, a missile protection mission launched by Germany. Kickl has criticized “elites” in Brussels and referred to as for some powers to be introduced again from the European Union to Austria.
“We don’t need to change our position, because we have always said that we’re ready to lead a government, we’re ready to push forward this change in Austria side by side with the people,” Kickl mentioned in an look alongside different social gathering leaders on ORF public tv. “The other parties should ask themselves where they stand on democracy,” he added, arguing that they need to “sleep on the result.”
Nehammer mentioned it was “bitter” that his social gathering missed out on first place, however famous he introduced it again from decrease ballot rankings. He has typically mentioned he will not kind a coalition with Kickl and mentioned that “what I said before the election, I also say after the election.”
More than 6.3 million people were eligible to vote for the new parliament in Austria, an EU member that has a policy of military neutrality.
Kickl has achieved a turnaround since Austria’s last parliamentary election in 2019. In June, the Freedom Party narrowly won a nationwide vote for the first time in the European Parliament election, which also brought gains for other European far-right parties.
Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, whose party dominates the Netherlands’ new government, congratulated the Freedom Party on social network X Sunday. So did Alice Weidel, a co-leader of the Alternative for Germany party.
The Freedom Party is a long-established force but Sunday’s result was its best yet in a national parliamentary election, beating the 26.9% it scored in 1999.
In 2019, its support slumped to 16.2% after a scandal brought down a government in which it was the junior partner. Then-vice chancellor and Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache resigned following the publication of a secretly recorded video in which he appeared to offer favors to a purported Russian investor.
The leader of the Social Democrats, a party that led many of Austria’s post-World War II governments, positioned himself as the polar opposite to Kickl. Andreas Babler ruled out governing with the far right and labeled Kickl “a threat to democracy.”
While the Freedom Party has recovered, the popularity of Nehammer’s People’s Party declined sharply compared with 2019. Support for the Greens, their coalition partner, also dropped to 8%.
During the election campaign, Nehammer portrayed his party, which has taken a tough line on immigration in recent years, as “the strong center” that would guarantee stability amid multiple crises.
However crises starting from the COVID-19 pandemic to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ensuing rising power costs and inflation additionally value it assist. The federal government additionally angered many Austrians in 2022 with a short-lived coronavirus vaccine mandate, the primary in Europe.
However the current flooding attributable to Storm Boris that hit Austria and different international locations could have helped Nehammer barely slender the hole as a disaster supervisor.
The Folks’s Occasion is the far proper’s solely means into authorities, and now holds the important thing to forming any administration.
Nehammer repeatedly excluded becoming a member of a authorities led by Kickl, describing him as a “security risk” for the nation, however did not rule out a coalition with the Freedom Occasion itself — which might indicate Kickl renouncing a place in authorities. However that appears not possible with the Freedom Occasion in first place.
The choice can be an alliance between the Folks’s Occasion and the Social Democrats — with or with out the liberal Neos, who took 9% of the vote.
A ultimate official consequence shall be printed later within the week after a small variety of remaining postal ballots have been counted, however these gained’t change the result considerably.
About 300 protesters gathered outdoors the parliament constructing in Vienna Sunday night, holding placards with slogans together with “Kickl is a Nazi.”
