Austria’s far-right Freedom Party could secure a national election victory for the first time on Sunday, capitalizing on voter concerns about immigration, inflation, the war in Ukraine, and other issues. This follows recent gains for right-wing parties across Europe.
Herbert Kickl, a former interior minister and longtime campaign strategist who has led the Freedom Party since 2021, seeks to become Austria’s next chancellor. He has adopted the term “Volkskanzler,” or chancellor of the people, previously used by the Nazis to describe Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. Kickl has denied any connection to the comparison.
However, to achieve a majority in the lower house of parliament, he would require a coalition partner.
Victory remains uncertain, with recent polls suggesting a close race. They indicate support for the Freedom Party at 27%, the conservative Austrian People’s Party of Chancellor Karl Nehammer at 25%, and the center-left Social Democrats at 21%.
Nevertheless, Kickl has orchestrated a turnaround since Austria’s last election in 2019. In June, the Freedom Party narrowly won a nationwide vote for the first time in the European Parliament election, mirroring gains for other European far-right parties.
In the 2019 election, the Freedom Party’s support plummeted to 16.2% following a scandal that brought down a government in which they were the junior coalition partner. Former vice chancellor and Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache resigned after a secretly recorded video surfaced, appearing to show him offering favors to a purported Russian investor.
The far right has successfully leveraged voter frustration over high inflation, the war in Ukraine, and the COVID pandemic. They have also capitalized on concerns about migration.
“You don’t really feel safe in your own country anymore. But then you’re being branded as right-wing just because you think about safety of your own people, the kids and women,” Margot Sterner, 54, said at a Freedom Party campaign event this month.
In its election program, the Freedom Party advocates for “remigration of uninvited foreigners,” and aims to achieve a more “homogeneous” nation through strict border controls and suspending asylum rights via an “emergency law.”
Gernot Bauer, a journalist with Austrian magazine Profil who recently co-published an investigative biography of the far-right leader, said that under Kickl’s leadership, the Freedom Party has moved “even further to the right,” as Kickl refuses to explicitly distance the party from the Identitarian Movement, a pan-European nationalist and far-right group.
Bauer describes Kickl’s rhetoric as “aggressive” and says some of his language is deliberately provocative.
The Freedom Party also calls for an end to sanctions against Russia, is highly critical of and wants to withdraw from the European Sky Shield Initiative, a missile defense project launched by Germany.
The leader of the Social Democrats, a party that led many of Austria’s post-World War II governments, has positioned himself as the direct opposite of Kickl. Andreas Babler — who is also mayor of the town of Traiskirchen, home to the country’s biggest refugee reception center — has ruled out governing with the far right and labeled Kickl “a threat to democracy.”
While the Freedom Party has rebounded, the popularity of Nehammer’s People’s Party, currently leading a coalition government with the environmentalist Greens as junior partners, has declined since 2019.
During the election campaign, Nehammer portrayed his party, which has adopted a tough stance on immigration in recent years, as “the strong center” that will ensure stability amidst multiple crises.
But it is precisely these crises, ranging from the to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and resulting rising energy prices, that have cost the conservatives support, said Peter Filzmaier, one of Austria’s leading political scientists.
Under their leadership, Austria has experienced high inflation averaging 4.2% over the past 12 months, surpassing the EU average.
The government also angered many Austrians in 2022 by becoming the first European country to introduce a coronavirus vaccine mandate, which was scrapped a few months later without ever being put into effect. And Nehammer is the third chancellor since the last election, taking office in 2021 after predecessor Sebastian Kurz — the winner in 2019 — quit politics amid a corruption investigation.
But the recent flooding caused by Storm Boris that hit Austria and other countries in Central Europe brought back the topic of the environment into the election debate and helped Nehammer slightly narrow the gap with the Freedom Party by presenting himself as a “crisis manager,” Filzmaier said.
The People’s Party is the far right’s only way into government.
Nehammer has repeatedly excluded joining a government led by Kickl, describing him as a “security risk” for the country, but hasn’t ruled out a coalition with the Freedom Party in and of itself, which would imply Kickl renouncing a position in government.
The likelihood of Kickl agreeing to such a deal if he wins the election is very low, Filzmaier said.
But should the People’s Party finish first, then a coalition between the People’s Party and the Freedom Party could happen, Filzmaier said. The most probable alternative would be a three-way alliance between the People’s Party, the Social Democrats and most likely the liberal Neos.