Sebastian Kurz, a 31-year-old conservative, is set to become the next chancellor of Austria and Europe’s youngest leader, though his party appears to have failed to win an outright majority, an exit poll predicts.
Kurz’s People’s Party (OVP) will gain the most seats in the National Council, winning 57 of 183, according to the exit poll by state broadcaster ORF.
The OVP is widely expected to form a coalition with the Freedom Party (FPO), which will win 51 seats, according to the poll. This would put a far-right party in an Austrian governing coalition for the first time in more than 10 years.
The FPO is headed up by Heinz Christian-Strache, who has called for “minus migration” and a ban on “fascistic Islam.”
Exit polls are not final results and the number of votes and seats given to one party may change.
The result essentially makes the FPO a kingmaker, in a country that has decided to shift to the right less than a year after voting against a far-right presidency.
The election was widely watched across Europe, where there has been a rise of populist far-right parties, many of which have campaigned on anti-immigration platforms.
Unlike Germany’s far-right AfD party — which won its first seats in the Bundestag in the federal elections there last month — the FPO has a long history in Austria’s Parliament and was part of a coalition government between 2000 and 2005.
Immigration takes center stage
Immigration has dominated the campaign. Kurz has taken a hard line, calling for limits on the number of refugees entering Europe and benefits cuts for EU migrants living in Austria.
In 2016, Kurz spearheaded a border crackdown across the Balkans designed to stem the flow of migrants, and this year he proposed plans to seal off the Mediterranean route to Europe.
Austria was governed by a coalition led by Chancellor Christian Kern’s Social Democrats (SPO) and Kurz’s OVP, but that partnership collapsed in May, prompting a snap vote.
The decision to call an early election also followed the resignation of OVP’s former leader and Austria’s Vice-Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner, who said the government was riven by infighting.
With migration dominating the campaign, the social issues at the heart of the SPO platform — including wealth redistribution and fighting unemployment — have been largely ignored.
The SPO will come in third with 49 of the seats, the poll indicates.
