Election Win for Immigration Hardliners in Austria, But Prospect of Power Unclear

Freedom Party of Austria head Herbert Kickl attends a television debate on Sept., 29, 2024. Reuters/Lisa Leutner

Austria’s populist Freedom Party (FPO) has secured its highest share of the national election vote for the first time in Austria, beating Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s governing conservative People’s Party (OVP).

On Sept. 29, the FPO won 29.2 percent of the vote, while Nehammer’s ruling OVP took 26.3 percent, and the center-left Social Democrats finished third with 21 percent. The Greens, who govern with the OVP, dropped to 8.3 percent.

Political Reality

FPO party leader Herbert Kickl said in an interview after the results came in that leaders of the other parties in Parliament dismissed his call to form a coalition. But to become Austria’s new leader, he will need a coalition partner to command a parliamentary majority.

With no party crossing the 50 percent mark, Austria’s coalition-based electoral system means the FPO will struggle to form a government alone.

“Tomorrow, there will be a blue Monday, and then we will set about turning that 29 percent into a political reality in this country,” Kickl told supporters on Sept. 29. Blue is the color associated with his party.

The FPO’s electoral success follows a spate of gains by parties with hardline immigration policies, such as Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party in the Netherlands, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France, and the AfD in Germany.

The FPO was founded in 1956 by Anton Reinthaller, a former SS officer and member of the Reichstag.

This month, Kickl called Adolf Hitler the “biggest mass murderer in human history,” and he denounced the Nazi dictator’s legacy in a television debate.

Policies

The FPO states in its manifesto that it wants immigrants who have entered Austria illegally to be removed, with very strict criteria enforced on legal immigration.

Running on the campaign slogan “Fortress Austria,” the party also promoted “remigration,” a policy of returning immigrants to their place of origin.

The party has tapped into voters’ concern about immigration, especially weeks after authorities arrested two individuals with alleged links to the ISIS terrorist group who were suspected of planning a terrorist attack at one of pop superstar Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna.

More than a quarter of the country has an immigrant background, according to official statistics.

“Austriaʼs population is growing solely through immigration; without it, the population would fall back to the level of the 1950s in the long term, according to the population forecast. Since 2015, the share of the population with a migration background has risen continuously from 21.4 percent to 25.4 percent,” Statistics Austria Director General Tobias Thomas said.

That number is now understood to have risen to 27 percent of the population of about 9 million last year.

Austria’s largest immigrant groups in 2023 include Germans (225,000), Romanians (147,500), Serbians (121,900), and Turks (119,700). In 2022, the country saw a significant rise in asylum applications, reaching 112,300, up from 39,900, with the largest increases from applicants from India, Tunisia, and Afghanistan.

The Freedom Party of Austria also proposes rejecting asylum applications from those who pass through safe countries, enforcing border “pushbacks,” and making asylum temporary, ending refugee status when home countries are deemed safe.

The party also stands against the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum, legislation that aims to create a unified asylum system across the EU and calls for stricter checks on naturalized Austrians’ citizenship.

“Whatever the government looks like after the election, I’m certain it'll work towards toughening up asylum and immigration law,” professor Walter Obwexer, an adviser to the government on migration law, told Reuters before the vote.

Lockdown

A sign warns visitors about controls of their status—vaccinated or healed from COVID-19—at the entrance to the 'Christkindlmarkt' Vienna's classic Christmas Market, on the square in front of the City Hall in Vienna, Austria, on Nov. 12, 2021. GEORG HOCHMUTH/APA/AFP via Getty Images

Kickl and the FPO also oppose sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, saying it violates Austria’s neutrality.

Reuters reported that Kickl’s campaign against coronavirus restrictions such as lockdowns and vaccine mandates helped revive the party’s fortunes.

Under Nehammer’s People’s Party in 2022, the country became the first EU member state to make vaccination legally compulsory for adults under a law that also made those who refused the jab liable for fines of up to 3,600 euros (about $4,000).

Prior to that measure in November 2021, the government implemented a lockdown for unvaccinated people, barring them from shops, businesses, theaters, restaurants, bars, and museums—apart from banks, grocery stores, and pharmacies.

Reuters contributed to this report.