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%.
Exit polls showed that the 13-point gain for the FPÖ since the last parliamentary election in 2019 came thanks to strong support among younger voters. Amid deep frustration with the cost of living and angst about immigration, the hard right clearly won among Austrians under 34 with 27% of that demographic, and even more decisively with the 35-to-59 set on 37%. The FPÖ profited as well from festering resentment over Austria’s strict measures during the Covid pandemic.
The FPÖ, which cites Hungary’s Viktor Orbán as a model, placed only third with over-60s on 22%. Instead, they gave their support to the ÖVP of the chancellor, Karl Nehammer, with 38%, and the SPÖ on 24%.
Austria has often faced criticism about its tepid culture of historical remembrance of the Nazi period, long casting itself as the Nazis’ “first victim” despite its enthusiastic welcome of the Anschluss in 1938 by native son Adolf Hitler.
In the wake of Sunday’s results, the International Auschwitz Committee, representing survivors of the Nazi extermination camp from 19 countries, denounced an “alarming new chapter” in Austria. Its vice-president, Christoph Heubner, said they were placing their faith in the “common ground among Austria’s democrats” to “stand up to historical amnesia and the ideology of old and new rightwing extremists … in the interest of the country and Europe”.
Benjamin Nägele, the general secretary of the Jewish Community of Vienna, described the results as “shocking but unfortunately not surprising.”
In the wake of the election, many had sought to contextualise the party’s triumph within the surge of support for the far-right across Europe, he said: “But we as a community have always emphasised the fact that this is not a normal far-right party.”
He added: “Rather, it’s a continuation of the secretive German nationalist fraternities and the political movement of the National Socialists — a direct lineage founded by an SS member – that makes them quite specific and highly problematic.”
Despite its resounding win, the FPÖ, which calls for a “Fortress Austria” against migration and “remigration” or forced deportations of unwanted foreigners, will face an uphill battle to form a government as it failed to secure an absolute majority.
All of the smaller parties have ruled out any cooperation with the hard right. The ÖVP, which has worked with the rightwing populists several times at national and regional level, would be a potential partner but has called a government led by polarising FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl a dealbreaker.
Kickl routinely deploys Nazi rhetoric in his speeches, rails against immigrants, sides with Russia in its war against Ukraine and was previously ousted as a hardline interior minister. The FPÖ would have to defenestrate Kickl, an acolyte of the late firebrand party leader Jörg Haider, if it hopes to realise its dream of claiming the chancellery.
Celebrating his triumph, Kickl urged the ÖVP and Nehammer to “sleep on the results for a few nights” before sticking to a firm ultimatum.
A few hundred leftist protesters rallied outside the parliament building in Vienna’s historic centre late on Sunday to urge the democratic parties to stand firm against the FPÖ, shouting “Nazis out” and “Never Kickl”.
President Alexander Van der Bellen, a former Greens leader who has the power to task parties with forming a government, urged the political class to preserve “the pillars of our liberal democracy”.
The thinly veiled encouragement to unite in isolating the FPÖ could result in Nehammer, with his second-place ÖVP, cobbling together an alliance with the Social Democrats and the Greens or the liberal Neos, the only party in parliament beyond the FPÖ to make gains in the election.
However, Vedran Džihić, a senior researcher at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs, called such a move “fraught with great risk”.
“This would bolster the (FPÖ) rhetoric around ‘parties of the system’ and ‘coalition of losers’, again picking up dissatisfied voters and setting it on a course for growth,” he said.
But he said the alternative, with the far right in power, would be far worse, “endangering democracy and the rule of law”.
A conservative hard-right coalition would “put Austria on the track of Hungary and Orbán … with more illiberalism, more fear and incitement, less Europe and less stability in society”.
Džihić, who has just published Ankommen (Arrival), about his experiences in Austria after fleeing the Bosnian war in 1993, said he saw himself and his children “directly targeted when the FPÖ talks about remigration”.
“When you yourself become the object of such hateful and violent omnipotence fantasies you get scared,” he said, adding that he was ”shocked that so many people in this country are prepared to give this party their vote”.
On the other hand, “there are still 71% who are clearly speaking out for democratic parties and reject the FPÖ,” he said. “That makes me hopeful that a large majority in this country will defend democracy and freedom in Austria.”
