Austria’s far-right Freedom party has scored its best result in a national election for almost two decades and could join the country’s next government, in a significant boost for Europe’s nationalist and anti-establishment movements.
Sebastian Kurz, the 31-year-old leader of the mainstream conservative People’s party, looked set to become Austrian chancellor — and the EU’s youngest leader — after narrowly topping Sunday’s poll, with 31.5 per cent according to projections based on early results.
But the projections showed 25.9 per cent of the vote went to the Freedom party, which has earned international notoriety for its xenophobia and airbrushing of Austria’s Nazi past. If borne out by final results, that would be its strongest performance since the 26.9 per cent it won in 1999 when the party was led by the charismatic Jörg Haider.
Its strong showing means the Freedom party could demand a high price to join a coalition led by Mr Kurz. That would almost certainty result a more hardline position from the government in Vienna on many EU topics, including immigration, and the Freedom party occupying top government posts such as the foreign and interior ministries.
However, Mr Kurz could seek another coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats, which gained 27.1 per cent of the vote according to projections, even though that would continue the “grand coalition” government between Austria’s two mainstream parties which disenchanted voters and which Mr Kurz had promised to overhaul.
Austria, which has a population of about 9m, was on the route of refugees fleeing wars in countries such as Syria, and received 130,000 asylum applications in 2015 and 2016.
Kurz's win is a reprieve so far but he may have no choice but to form a coalition with the Freedom Party. Austria's president, Alexander Van der Bellen, barely beat out the Freedom Party's Norbert Hofer in last year's presidential race, so once again Austria dodges a bullet.
How long that will remain true, I can't tell you.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment