Fear, uncertainty and suspicion are running high in Klagenfurt, southern Austria, before Sunday’s high-stakes parliamentary election, in which the far-right Freedom party (FPÖ) could become the strongest force in the country for the first time in the postwar period.
For at least a week, and some local people say much longer, the tap water in this city of baroque facades and a stunning Alpine lake has been contaminated with faecal bacteria and unsafe to drink. No one – not the government or environmental officials – has managed to ascertain the cause although baseless theories involving poisoned wells, migrants and other scapegoats run wild in pubs and the darker corners of the internet. Nor is a solution in sight. “Plan C”, as the public works chief, Erwin Smole, has described flushing pipes with diluted chlorine, is still being considered after other measures failed.
As local citizens picked up their free drinking water in plastic bottles from a distribution point at a convention centre, the pessimism and outrage over the political class that have fuelled the rise of the far right across Europe was plain to see.
“I haven’t decided who to vote for – it’s hard to trust anyone these days,” said hospital nurse Elisabeth Liftenegger, 55, summing up the anti-incumbent sentiment as she loaded up a shopping trolley with potable water.
“People are just tired and haven’t received nearly enough information” about the contamination, said Valbone Krasniqi, a 45-year-old office worker who emigrated from Kosovo as a child in the 1990s. She heaved a case of water into the boot of her car as her 10-year-old son played a video game on the front seat.
“It’s just one thing after another. I don’t usually vote but I think I will this time – every year just seems to get harder and harder. I don’t understand why people aren’t protesting in the streets – they need to wake up.”
The anti-asylum, anti-Islam FPÖ can count on critical momentum from rightwing extremists in many parts of Europe. But even if it wins, the FPÖ’s ability to form a government would depend on whether a mainstream party agrees to cooperate with it, as it has little chance of gaining an absolute majority.
But the ramifications of a powerful FPÖ would be felt well beyond Austria, a small country of 9 million that tends to punch above its weight in the EU owing to its geographical prominence and strong alliances.
Many Klagenfurters who spoke to the Guardian said the water crisis felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back after years of anxiety about political leadership on immigration and asylum, the soaring cost of living and the war in Ukraine.
“It’s a catastrophe – they informed us of the problem far too late,” said Michaela, 57, adding that she and her husband, Peter, had felt unwell after drinking from the tap up to three weeks before the government alert went out.
She said that while they as a couple had to “turn over every cent” to make ends meet, “the others – the foreigners – get everything handed to them”. Michaela, who declined to give her last name, said the FPÖ was the only party talking about taking benefits away from non-Austrians.
The FPÖ has seized on the water problems as a symbol of broader government failings, with its local leader, Andreas Skorianz, asserting that city drinking fountains were still flowing days into the crisis. “The public has the right to transparent information and clean water,” he said.
The FPÖ, which is also pro-Kremlin and deeply Eurosceptic, came first in Austria during the June elections for the European parliament. Support for the party in Carinthia state, of which Klagenfurt is the capital, was 33.2%, the highest in the country.
With days to go before Sunday’s election, the FPÖ has a narrow national lead in the polls with about 27% support, ahead of the ruling conservative Austrian People’s party (ÖVP) with 25% and the opposition Social Democrats on 21%. Splinter outfits such as the communists, which have done well in some Austrian cities, and the apolitical Beer party are polling just below the 4% hurdle for representation.
While the far right has clinched power in EU countries including Italy and the Netherlands and this month won for the first time since the Nazi era in a German federal state, the FPÖ has long formed part of the mainstream in Austria, a country many critics say never fully owned up to its Nazi past.
Founded by ex-Nazi functionaries and meant to provide former fascists with a political home after the second world war, it proved relatively moderate until the former FPÖ leader and Carinthia premier Jörg Haider, who died in a car crash outside Klagenfurt in 2008, harnessed immigration fears to make it a potent political force.
While Germany has maintained a “firewall” against the hard-right AfD joining governments, Austria stunned Europe when the ÖVP made the far right its junior partner in government after elections in 1999 and again in 2017 in short-lived coalitions. The FPÖ has government berths in three of Austria’s nine states.
Haider’s legacy still looms large in Carinthia, particularly in rural regions where the FPÖ is at its strongest. But in Klagenfurt too, with its picture-book old town and warm, glimmering lake that attracts tourists from across Europe, his brash anti-establishment rhetoric still resonates.
Julia Partheymüller, a political scientist at the Vienna Center for Electoral Research, said the devastating flooding caused by Storm Boris this month and the water contamination in Klagenfurt were the kind of catastrophes that could prove decisive in a tight race, as undecided voters weigh their options.
“Governing parties benefit in crisis situations because they’re in the foreground and can demonstrate their capacity to act,” she said. “However, it depends a lot on how effective their crisis management is perceived by citizens to be.”
Despite doubts about the ÖVP’s leadership amid high inflation and weak economic performance, Austria’s chancellor, Karl Nehammer, is likely to be crucial to any future government.
He has campaigned hard as a moderate alternative to the FPÖ, which uses anti-migrant slogans such as “Fortress Austria” and “Austria First” and is led by the polarising former hardline interior minister Herbert Kickl, who dabbles in Nazi rhetoric but denies any intentional historical references.
Nehammer has vowed that his party will not play kingmaker to the FPÖ if it would make Kickl the head of the government. But he has expressed openness to a coalition if the hard right picks another leader. The alternative would be an awkward three-way alliance with the Social Democrats and either the Greens, now junior partners in government, or the liberal NEOS party. Germany’s deeply unpopular tripartite government under its chancellor, Olaf Scholz, hobbled by infighting, serves as a cautionary tale for many Austrians.
However, freezing out the FPÖ if it wins is seen as risky in Austria in the long run, leaving its voters feeling disfranchised and potentially boosting its support.
With the election outcome on a knife-edge, many voters said they felt particularly motivated to take part and make a difference. “The turnout will be high – I’ll definitely be voting on Sunday,” said Johann Uhl, 57, a farm bookkeeper who uses a wheelchair. “We’ll be fighting for the famous centre to hold, and to make sure that no force backing a racist or anti-EU course wins out.”
Partheymüller said the outcome of Sunday’s election would be incredibly tight and depend on mobilisation.
“The country could truly go either way,” she said.
