Austria's far-right Freedom Party comes out ahead in legislative election

NEWS WIRES

29 September 2024 at 3:26 am·1-min read

Vote projections showed that Austria’s far-right Freedom Party won national legislative election for the first time on Sunday. The far right has benefited from voters’ anxieties about immigration, inflation, Ukraine and other concerns.

The Freedom Party was headed for the first far-right win in a national parliamentary election in post-World War II Austria on Sunday, finishing ahead of the governing conservatives after tapping into voters’ anxieties about immigration, inflation, Ukraine and other issues, a projection showed. But its chances of governing were unclear.

A projection for ORF public television, based on counting of about two-thirds of the votes, put support for the Freedom Party at 29.1% and Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party at 26.3%. The center-left Social Democrats were in third place with 21%. The outgoing government — a coalition of Nehammer's party and the environmentalist Greens — lost its majority in the lower house of parliament.

Herbert Kickl, a former interior minister and longtime campaign strategist who has led the Freedom Party since 2021, wants to be chancellor.

But to become Austria’s new leader, he would need a coalition partner to command a parliamentary majority. Rivals have said they won’t work with Kickl in government.

The People’s Party is the far right’s only way into government.

(AP)

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