Austria’s main parties are preparing to begin a tense fight to form a government, amid warnings of dangers to democracy after the far-right’s historic victory in parliamentary elections in which voters punished traditional parties for the specter of migration and inflation.
On Sunday, the anti-Islamist and pro-Kremlin FPÖ obtained its best result since its creation after the Second World War by former Nazi officials and SS officers, with just over 29% of the vote. The result exceeded expectations and beat the ruling conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) by almost three percentage points. The center-left opposition Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) obtained the worst result in its history, with 21%, while the Greens, the government’s minority partners, fell to 8%.
The results show that the FPÖ’s 13-point increase since the last legislative elections in 2019 is due to strong support from young voters. Amid deep frustration with the cost of living and the specter of migration, the far right has clearly won among Austrians under 34 with 27% of this population, and even more decisively among 35 to 35 years old, 59 years old with 37%. The FPÖ has also benefited from growing resentment towards the strict measures adopted by Austria during the Covid pandemic.
The FPÖ, which cites the Hungarian Viktor Orbán as a model, only comes in third position among those over 60, with 22%. Instead, they gave their support to Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s ÖVP with 38% and the SPÖ with 24%.
Austria has often been criticized for its lukewarm cultivation of historical memory of the Nazi period, long considering itself the “first victim” of the Nazis, despite the enthusiastic reception of the Anschluss in 1938 by its son Adolf Hitler.
After Sunday’s results, the International Auschwitz Committee, which represents survivors of Nazi extermination camps from 19 countries, denounced an “alarming new chapter” in Austria.
Its vice-president, Christoph Heubner, said they were relying on the “common basis of Austrian democrats” to “confront historical amnesia and the ideology of the old and new far right…in the interest of the country and of Europe. »
Despite its resounding victory, the FPÖ, which advocates an “Austrian fortress” against migration and “remigration” or the forced expulsion of unwanted foreigners, will face an uphill battle to form a government, as it has not managed to obtain an absolute majority.
All the small parties have ruled out any cooperation with the ultras. The ÖVP, which has repeatedly worked with the ultras at national and regional level, would be a potential partner, but announced that a government led by FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl would be impossible.
Kickl regularly uses Nazi rhetoric in his speeches, attacks migrants, aligns with Russia in its invasion of Ukraine and has already been dismissed as interior minister. The FPÖ should oust Kickl, an acolyte of the late party leader Jörg Haider, if it is to realize its dream of occupying the Chancellery.
To celebrate his victory, Kickl urged the ÖVP and Prime Minister Nehammer to “sleep on the results for a few nights” before issuing a firm ultimatum.
A few hundred left-wing demonstrators gathered on Sunday evening in front of the Parliament, in the historic center of Vienna, to ask the democratic parties to stand firm against the FPÖ, with cries of “Nazis out” and “never Kickl”.
The country’s president, Alexander Van der Bellen, former leader of the Greens and responsible for tasking the parties with forming a government, urged politicians to preserve “the pillars of our liberal democracy”.
The thinly veiled incitement to unite to isolate the FPÖ could lead Nehammer, with his ÖVP in second place, to ally himself with the social democrats and the Greens or with the liberal Neos party, the only party in Parliament apart from the FPÖ, which has grown in recent years. elections.
However, Vedran Džihić, senior researcher at the Austrian Institute of International Affairs, believes that this decision “would entail great risks”.
“This would reinforce (the FPÖ’s) rhetoric around ‘system parties’ and ‘coalition of losers’, re-appealing disaffected voters and putting them on the path to growth,” he said . But he also said the alternative, with the far right in power, would be far worse, “endangering democracy and the rule of law.”
A far-right conservative coalition would “put Austria on the path of Hungary and Orbán… with more anti-liberalism, more fear and incitement, less Europe and less stability in society.”
Džihić, who just published Ankommen (Arrival), about his experiences in Austria after fleeing the Bosnian war in 1993, said he saw himself and his children “directly in the line of fire when the FPÖ speaks of the return of emigration.
“When you yourself become the object of hateful, violent fantasies of omnipotence, it scares you,” he said, adding that he was “shocked that so many people in this country are willing to give their vote to this party.
On the other hand, “there are still 71% who are clearly in favor of the democratic parties and reject the FPÖ”, he declared: “This makes me hope that a large majority of this country will defend democracy and freedom in Austria. .
