ASSESSMENTS

What a Far-Right Electoral Win Would Mean for Austria

Sep 25, 2024 | 15:14 GMT

A pedestrian walks past a billboard with an election poster for Harald Vilimsky, the top candidate of Austria's right-wing Freedom Party in the June European Parliament elections, on May 13, 2024.
A pedestrian walks past a billboard with an election poster for Harald Vilimsky, the top candidate of Austria's right-wing Freedom Party in the June European Parliament elections, on May 13, 2024.

(Photo by JOE KLAMAR/AFP via Getty Images)

The far-right is likely to win Austria's upcoming general election, which could result in either a fragile broad coalition government or a far-right-led coalition that may weaken EU support for Ukraine and disrupt the free movement of people and goods within the bloc. Austria will hold parliamentary elections on Sept. 29, with opinion polls indicating the far-right, anti-immigration, eurosceptic Freedom Party, or FPO, will receive 28% of the votes, followed by the ruling center-right Austrian People's Party, or OVP, with 25%. Meanwhile, the center-left opposition Social Democratic Party, or SPO, is expected to take 20% of the votes, the liberal NEOS party 9% and the other co-governing party, the Greens, 8%. The FPO has kept a substantial lead over the OVP and the other main opposition party, the SPO, for almost two years, propelled by Austrians' grievances against a sluggish economy, illegal migration and a heightened Islamist extremist terrorist threat...

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