In Austria, legislative elections began on Sunday to which 6.43 million citizens with the right to vote are called and which could end, according to polls, for the first time in the country’s history with a victory for the ultranationalists.
The first polling stations opened at 6:00 a.m. local time (04:00 GMT) and the last to close will do so at 5:00 p.m. local time, when the first projections of the results are expected.
According to the latest polls, the ultranationalist liberal party FPÖ, led by former Interior Minister Herbert Kickl, has voting intentions of 26%, one percentage point more than the ruling popular party ÖVP, winner of the 2019 elections with 37.5%.
Third in the polls, the social-democratic SPÖ party, with 21% of voting intentions, ahead of the liberal NEOS party, with 12%.
Meanwhile, the environmentalist Greens, partners of the ÖVP in the current government coalition, are expected to reach 8% of the vote, or six points less than five years ago.
The electoral campaign was marked first by the nationalist, eurosceptic and xenophobic messages of the FPÖ then by the serious floods which devastated the east of the country.
The management of this natural disaster by the current Federal Chancellor, the conservative Karl Nehammer, gave him a little strength in the home stretch of the campaign.
Thus, the ÖVP seems to have considerably reduced the gap with the FPÖ, which had been leading the opinion polls for more than a year with up to 30% of voting intentions.
