Austria’s main parties are preparing to begin tense wrangling to form a government amid warnings about the country’s democracy after the far right’s watershed victory in a general election in which angry voters punished centrist incumbents over migration and inflation.
On Sunday, the anti-Islam, Kremlin-friendly Freedom party (FPÖ) scored its strongest result since its founding after the second world war by former Nazi functionaries and SS officers with just over 29% of the vote. The outcome surpassed expectations and beat the ruling centre-right People’s party (ÖVP) by nearly three percentage points. The centre-left opposition Social Democratic party (SPÖ) turned in its worst-ever performance with 21% while the Greens, junior partners in government, sank to 8%.
