For the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), the weeks are going by like clockwork. The far-right party continues to top the polls. It is expected to clinch a comfortable victory in the European elections on 9 June with almost 27% of the vote, well ahead of the Social Democrats of the SPÖ (23%) and the conservatives of the ÖVP, currently in power (21%).
What’s more, polls also put the FPÖ in first place in the country’s legislative elections in September, with 30% of the vote (compared with 21% for the SPÖ and 20% for the ÖVP). To the party’s leaders, these encouraging predictions represent a historic opportunity to place one of their own in the post of Chancellor for the first time, a position held since 2021 by an ÖVP representative, Karl Nehammer.
The FPÖ, which was founded in 1956 and took off when it was led by the firebrand Jorg Haïder (1986-2000), has a history of reaching the gates of power without crossing it. The party reached second place in the elections of 1957, 1980, 2010 and 2022, and has participated in three government coalitions since its creation, the first with the Social Democrats between 1983 and 1986, the second and third with the conservatives of the ÖVP from 2000 to 2006, and from 2017 to 2019. But its leaders and activists sense the tide may have decisively turned in their favour.
