One year before national elections, the Austrian far right is more popular than ever

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Despite losing credibility with all but its most loyal support base after the 2019 Ibiza scandal, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) is as popular today as it was when He was last in power, under the coalition government with the Austrian People’s Party (OVP). in 2017, according to polls.

In 2020, the FPÖ, a right-wing populist party, achieved a dismal 11% result in the polls. According to polls, they are today the most popular party in the Alpine Republic. What was once a party struggling to recover from a national scandal is now a major contender for the Austrian chancellorship in the 2024 elections, meaning another European domino could topple into populism and right-wing politics.

In January’s regional elections, the FPÖ managed to come second in the country’s largest state, Lower Austria, forcing the ÖVP to agree to a coalition. A few weeks later, he also won seats in the regional government of Salzburg, the richest state outside Vienna.

“Since Ibiza, it has been the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s war against Ukraine, current economic insecurities and immigration figures that have provided fertile ground for a return. » Dr Weisskircher, a political scientist at TU Dresden, told Euronews.

“Furthermore, the Social Democrats, currently the largest opposition party in the Austrian Parliament, have performed abysmally in recent years, marked by internal party struggles rather than an effective opposition campaign.”

Back from the dead

The FPÖ began to appeal to its support base again as a truly “free” party during the pandemic, when the government began to restrict individual freedoms in the form of lockdowns, vaccinations and other social restrictions.

At the time, the party was still reeling from the infamous Ibiza scandal of 2019 when Heinz-Christian Strache, then Austrian vice-chancellor and leader of the FPÖ party, was filmed seeking political favors from of Russian business contacts. Strache also signed a partnership agreement with Putin’s United Russia party in 2016.

Besides the fact that the Venga Boys’ song “We’re going to Ibiza” reached number one in the Austrian music charts, the scandal wiped out much of the FPÖ’s prospects for the immediate future. Strache resigned in disgrace and the coalition government dissolved shortly after turning the spotlight on the ÖVP’s Sebastian Kurz as Austria’s unfettered chancellor.

But the global health crisis gave him his first real chance to return. Every weekend, anti-lockdown, anti-vaccination and pro-freedom marches took place in the city center, with Austrian flags fervently waved from side to side.

Current FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl even decried rumors that he was secretly vaccinated against COVID in 2021.

The war in Ukraine further strained the Austrian public’s relationship with the ruling party, as prices began to inflate and Austrian “neutrality” was tested with sanctions against Russia.

Then, after months of corruption investigation, Kurz resigned as chancellor, two years after dissolving the coalition government, leaving the ÖVP with the bag of a bad reputation and public speculation, further pushing no more old supporters in the arms of an old love, the FPÖ.

Flirting too close to the right

The antics of the FPÖ can be considered both in poor taste and often misguided.

In the run-up to Vienna’s October 2020 municipal elections, posters of political candidates lined the streets. That of FPÖ candidate Dominik Nepp hung vertically, the lower half showing a screaming white woman with her hand clutching her face, while a menacing-looking brown-skinned man in a balaclava, stood behind her with a knife.

The upper half showed a contented white couple, including Nepp, with the text: “With him, Vienna will be safe again,” and the other candidates “will put us in danger.”

It was just one of many posters spread across the city, displaying the same attitude towards Muslims, migrants and anything else that threatened traditional Austrian views of family. Nepp himself called the coronavirus the “asylum seeker’s virus.”

FPÖ members recently visited Kabul, the capital of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where women are barred from higher education, to give “a real picture” of the place. Their real objective was to obtain the release of a right-wing extremist and founder of a political party, now dissolved due to its links with National Socialism.

In July, FPÖ members found themselves among several hundred other far-right protesters in a march proclaiming “white ethnic power” and the goal of “protecting Austria.”

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Appealing to “people who feel confused”

Situated along the Balkan migration route, the country received the fourth highest number of asylum applications in the EU in 2022, and for a country of just under nine million people, migration is has long been a dominant topic of discussion in Austrian politics.

“They (the FPÖ) are aimed at people who feel disoriented by the complexity of the challenges we face, including coronavirus, Ukraine and economic challenges, and these people do not feel safe.” Professor Martin Kohanec, from the Department of Public Policy at the Central European University in Vienna, explained to Euronews why migrants are “easy” targets for right-wing parties.

“The strategy of these kinds of parties that talk about these challenges presents a kind of threat, including migrants.”

Alexander Pollak, spokesman for the human rights organization SOS Mitmensch, said the FPÖ was waging a “long-term racist campaign” against Muslims.

As Kickl waltzes towards the Chancellery, the EU could be worried

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In March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered a live speech to the Austrian Parliament. As he began to thank Austria for its support of Ukraine, the 29 FPÖ members in the chamber, including leader Herbert Kickl, left, leaving signs reading “peace” and “neutrality”.

Kickl and party members have expressed opposition to EU sanctions and admiration for leaders like Hungary’s Victor Orbán, with Kickl keen to use Austria’s veto power to block sanctions against Russia. He was elected Volkskanzler (People’s Chancellor).

Italy, Poland, Hungary and, more recently, Slovakia have all seen populists take power. Even Germany’s far-right AfD party has seen its popularity rise under German Chancellor Scholz’s government, with Austria posing a potential new headache for Brussels.

Along with several other right-wing parties such as the AfD in Germany, the League in Italy and the Rassemblement National in France, the FPÖ is part of the Identity and Democracy Group of the European Parliament, thus strengthening a minority right-wing group within the EU institution.

It’s unclear whether the FPÖ can maintain this momentum in popularity ahead of the fall 2023 elections, but with infighting ravaging centrist parties, it may be a safer bet than others.

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Although Kickl remains less popular than the party, it seems clear that, based on past experiences of two coalition governments in 25 years, the FPÖ will no longer share power.