Nearly four years ago, Austria’s populist far-right Freedom Party was ousted from the national coalition government over a major corruption scandal, and voters punished it at the ballot box.
But the party’s nearly double-digit gains in Sunday’s regional election in the province of Lower Austria confirmed a political trend on the national level. In recent months, the Freedom Party has regained its previous momentum — and, according to recent polls, is now the strongest party in the small Alpine nation.
