The hard-right Freedom Party comes first in Austria

TWO DECADES ago it would have shocked the conscience of Europe. This time, it was generally expected. As forecast in the polls, a hard-right populist party came first in Austria’s parliamentary elections on September 29th for the first time in the country’s post-war history. The anti-immigrant Freedom Party (FPÖ), whose leader, Herbert Kickl, says he wants to imitate Hungary’s Viktor Orban, received 29% of the votes, according to initial exit polls—well above the 16% it got at the previous election in 2019. The governing centre-right People’s Party (ÖVP) got 26%, followed by the Social Democrats (SPÖ) with 20%, their worst result ever. The liberal NEOS party and the Greens each got about 9%, comfortably above the 4% threshold to enter parliament.