09/29/2024 – 14:07
Freedom Party (FPÖ) obtains its best result ever, leaving behind the conservative government ÖVP and the social democratic SPÖ. Ultranationalists have already announced that they want to form a new government. The extreme right won the legislative elections in Austria this Sunday (29/09) The projections published at the end of the vote by the public broadcaster ORF point towards a historic victory, albeit a close one.
The Freedom Party (FPÖ), led by former Interior Minister Herbert Kickl, obtained 29.1% of the vote, against 26.2% for the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), led by Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer, according to first estimates based in counting part of the postal votes and ballot papers counted at previously closed polling stations.
Despite having already been part of the Austrian government a few times, this is the first time that the ultranationalist party has won parliamentary elections, having grown 13 percentage points compared to the 2019 results, with its anti-immigration message and criticism of the measures taken by the current government , made up of conservatives and environmentalists, to control the covid-19 pandemic.
In turn, the ÖVP lost 11 points since the last election. The third force in the Vienna Parliament would become the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) with 20.9% of the votes, 0.3% below its last results.
FPÖ demands to form new Austrian Executive
Neos liberals (8.8%) and the Green Party (8.7%), a minority partner in the government, which lost more than five points since the last elections, also enter Parliament.
The FPÖ is allied with other ultranationalist and far-right groups in Europe, such as the Brothers of Italy (FdI) or the Hungarian Fidesz. The co-president of the ultra-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel, hailed his victory. With a campaign in which Kickl used slogans such as “You are the boss, I am your tool”, he achieved his best electoral result, even surpassing that of his historic leader Jörg Haider in 1999.
At the time, despite being the second most voted force, the party handed over government leadership to the ÖVP, which had come in third place. This time, however, the FPÖ already anticipated during the campaign that, if it won the elections, it would take on the task of establishing the new Executive.
av (EFE, AFP, DPA, Lusa)
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