The first preliminary official results with reference to yesterday’s preliminary results of the Austrian Ministry of the Interior were brought on Monday night by the APA agency.
According to them, the FPÖ won 29.21 percent of the vote, achieving a record vote increase of 13.04 percent, APA writes. With a gain of 26.48 percent, Chancellor Karel Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) finished in second place, which, on the other hand, suffered a record loss of more than ten percent.
Third is the opposition Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) with 21.05 percent of the vote. The liberal party NEOS won 8.96 percent and the Greens 8.03 percent of the vote.
Voter turnout was slightly higher than in 2019 at 78.5 percent.
For the first time ever, postal votes will also be counted on Sunday – Austrians can also cast their vote in advance by mail. Part of the correspondence votes will be counted only on Monday and a smaller part even on Thursday.
In most places in Austria, voting took place until 4 p.m., but voting officially ended at 5 p.m., when polling stations also closed in Vienna and Großgmain.
Kickl’s success
It is the first victory in the national parliamentary elections for the Austrian Free Party (FPÖ), led by Herbert Kickl. The party scored with voters with the slogan “Fortress Austria” and an emphasis on, among other things, opposition to immigration.
Even the last pre-election polls predicted a slight lead over the People’s Party.
The census is monitored by the FPÖ in the Viennese restaurant Stiegl Ambulanz, after the first estimates, people there burst into cheers.
Photo: FB/Herbert Kickl
The joy of Herbert Kickl (center) and his collaborators.
The general secretary of the party, Michael Schnedlitz, speaks of extraordinary satisfaction. “The Austrians made history,” he said in an interview with ORF. He also thanked party leader Kickl, whom he described as an “architect, master builder and driver of change”.
Kickl then declared on the broadcast of public television ORF that Svobodní are ready to lead the government. He called on other parties to reconsider their negative attitude towards the FPÖ. “Our hand is outstretched. I am ready to negotiate with each of them,” he declared.
Alice Weidel, co-chair of the Alternative for Germany, has already congratulated the party. The FPÖ is in the European Parliament in the joint Patriots for Europe faction with, among others, the Czech ANO movement or the Hungarian ruling party Fidesz.
ANO leader Andrej Babiš congratulated Kickl before eight in the evening. “Congratulations to Herbert Kickl and the FPÖ for winning the parliamentary elections! Viktor Orbán rightly pointed out that the Patriots for Europe are getting stronger every day,” Babiš wrote on the X network.
Nehammer’s loss
People anxiously awaited the first estimates in a tent in front of the party headquarters in Vienna’s Lichtenfelsgasse. From 37.5 percent in 2019, the People’s Party fell by more than 10 percentage points.
“I didn’t reach the goal I set for myself. It’s bitter,” Chancellor and People’s Republic leader Karl Nehammer commented on the results. Still, he says, he remains an optimist. The chancellor did not want to comment on a possible coalition yet.
Estimates of the results of the elections to the Austrian National Council, 5:00 p.m. side estimate of the result in % of mandates estimate Liberals (FPÖ) 29,157 People’s Party (ÖVP) 26,252 Social Democrats (SPÖ) 20,440 NEOS 8,817 Greens 8,617 Source: Foresight Institute for APA agency and ORF television
According to the newspaper Der Standard, “deep consternation” prevailed in the election staff of the Austrian Social Democrats (SPÖ) in the Vienna Folk Museum. There was also crying after the projection of the estimates. The SPÖ has been in opposition since 2017.
Party general secretary Klaus Seltenheim called Sunday a “black day for democracy” because of the Svobodny result. According to him, the aim of the SPÖ now will be to prevent a coalition government between the Liberals and the People.
Who are the victorious Freelancers?
Political scientist Reinhard Heinisch from the University of Salzburg called Svobodné a “radically right-wing populist party” in an interview for Seznam Zpravy.
“They oppose the elites and claim that they have deprived the people of their sovereignty and that they ignore the problems of the people. The radical right claims that the main problem is migration and identity. Liberals mobilize people who fear change, modernization and globalization,” explained Heinisch.
Profiles of two leaders
List This week’s news featured profiles of the chairman of the Liberal Party, Herbert Kickl, and the current Chancellor of the People’s Republic, Karel Nehammer:
In the campaign just before the elections on Saturday, the publication of the server Der Standard spoke about the fact that several FPÖ members participated in the funeral of the former district councilor of the Svobodny Walter Sucher. According to a video published by Der Standard, a song that used to be a standard part of the repertoire of Nazi SS troops was sung at the funeral.
What are the scenarios now?
After the voters, Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen will have the main speech. The former leader of the Greens is in office for the second term and made it clear in advance that he has a problem with Herbert Kickl as a candidate for chancellor.
This is also indicated by his statement from Sunday evening.
“To the best of my knowledge and conscience, I will ensure that the basic pillars of our liberal democracy, such as the rule of law, separation of powers, human and minority rights, independent media and EU membership, are respected when forming the government,” the president said.
“It is the foundation on which we have built our prosperity and security. And regardless of the composition of the future federal government, its main goal must be to ensure a good future for us all,” Van der Bellen added.
The system as the enemy
If the Liberals eventually came to power as a decisive force, according to the Austrian paper The standard they are de facto concerned with the overthrow of the parliamentary republic and the liberal democratic system.
Kickl often talks about the “system”: system parties, system press, system politicians and system chancellor. He himself would like to become a “free people’s chancellor of the people and for the people”. The manner of his election and powers remain unclear in the program.
In Kickl’s vision of Austria, there should also be “emergency laws” that will abolish the right to asylum. Parliament would go around a referendum, in which the government could also appeal. And the protection of sovereignty “against interference from the EU” and other organizations should be written into the constitution.
Teachers who would educate pupils differently than according to the ideas of the FPÖ would be threatened with punishment.
“It would be a system where key legal safeguards are removed and a reporting and surveillance system is introduced. But such an authoritarian system already exists – in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary,” wrote the Austrian Der Standard before the elections.
A grand coalition on the scene
The most likely scenario is that the other parliamentary parties will form a government in an attempt to bypass Kickl’s FPÖ. The Social Democrats and the smaller liberal party NEOS, which was voted by less than nine percent of the people, have already applied for participation in such a cabinet.
The triple coalition of populists, social democrats and liberals would be called turquoise-red-pink according to the party colors or “dirndl coalition” according to the traditional folk costume. Maybe there is also a government of the People’s Party, the SPÖ and the Greens.
The scenario of the Svobodny government without the personal participation of their leader is also on the table. The chancellor and chairman of the People’s Party ÖVP Karl Nehammer considers him to be an unacceptable figure.
The People’s Party already ruled with the Liberals from 2017 to 2019. But the government of the then chancellor Sebastian Kurz fell because of the Ibiza affair – the recordings of the former FPÖ chairman Heinz-Christian Strache with a corrupt background.
After early elections in 2019, another Kurz coalition government of the People’s Party was formed, this time with the Greens. In 2021, Kurz was replaced by Karl Nehammer due to suspicions of corruption.
Photo: Jaromír Vondrák, Seznam Zpravy
Who’s who in Austrian politics.
