By Louis van Boxel-Woolf
VIENNA (Reuters) – Luca Pirveli grew up in Austria as the son of Georgian refugees, but the 19-year-old believes immigration is out of control and should be curbed. He is one of many young working-age voters who helped propel Austria’s far right to its first election victory.
Many were voicing their belief not just that Austria has in the past few years taken in immigrants from outside Europe faster than it can integrate them, but also concerns about economic stagnation and the spiralling cost of living.
Sunday’s election, which gave the Freedom Party (FPO) led by the Russia-friendly, eurosceptic Herbert Kickl 29% of the vote, its best-ever showing, delivered a clear message, said Pirveli, a university student in Vienna.
“This result means change for Austria, change in immigration policy, change in economic policy,” he said, adding that he expected “asylum seekers who come and commit crimes” would henceforth be deported.
Pirveli’s belief in the FPO reflects the growing popularity in the European Union of hard-right parties that have embraced social media like TikTok to attract younger people worried about the impact of inflation, job security and the Ukraine war.
FPO supporters are more likely to be edgy about terrorism, immigration and also the least likely to agree that democracy is the most effective form of government, according to a survey of 1,248 voters over the past week by polling firms Foresight and ISA.
“It’s always been the case that the Freedom Party benefits when the country is very dissatisfied,” said Peter Hajek of polling firm Peter Hajek Public Opinion Strategies.
The FPO, whose total vote jumped from the last election in 2019 by about 630,000 to over 1.4 million, remains well short of a majority in parliament. To govern, it will need a partner.
Despite the FPO’s efforts to moderate its image, the party – originally led in the 1950s by an ex-Nazi SS officer – remains anathema to most of the political spectrum. After Sunday’s vote, its rivals quickly refused to enter into a coalition with the firebrand Kickl.
Even as voting took place on Sunday, controversy resurfaced about the FPO’s past when a video published by newspaper Der Standard showed members of the party attending a recent funeral where a song once popular with the SS was sung.
But other parties should be wary of trying to keep the FPO out of government, said Josef Binder, a 57-year-old carpenter and FPO voter. “Ignoring 29% of the voters is not on,” he said.
In an apparent nod to such sentiment, Chancellor Karl Nehammer, leader of the governing conservatives, urged Austria’s president on Tuesday to give the FPO the first crack at forming a new coalition, saying this would uphold democratic tradition.
ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT SENTIMENT
So strong is the discontent with the Alpine republic’s established parties that even some longtime opponents say the FPO has taken the correct approach to some issues.
“Before, I’d have said (an FPO victory) is definitely bad,” said Christina Sieber, a disenchanted longtime Greens voter.
While she still considers the FPO “too dangerous” to vote for, she described her opposition to it as more nuanced now. The party, she said, had been right to oppose Austria’s strict lockdown and mandatory inoculations during the COVID pandemic.
Lingering resentment over lockdown carried over into the election, and the FPO has been particularly effective in getting its message out on social media, said Hajek.
With 216,000 subscribers on its official YouTube channel, the FPO eclipses the 1,500 of the long-governing conservative People’s Party (OVP). The FPO also has many more followers on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
The Foresight survey showed 27% of young voters opting for the FPO, compared with 20% for the OVP and up from 20% at the previous election in 2019.
Among middle-aged voters, the FPO captured 37%, almost double that of the OVP and over double the 16% taken by the far right at the polls five years ago.
Rising discontent over Austria’s stagnating economy and immigration has broadened the FPO’s appeal, said Hajek. Some 57% of voters said Austria had been on the wrong track over the last five years, up from 32% in 2019, the Foresight study found.
Pirveli, the university student, said things would have to change even if the FPO were excluded from the next government. “If the parties just carry on as before then the result will be even clearer at the next election.”
Engineer Josef Gradl, 55, a Green voter, said he feared an FPO-led government would exploit widespread pessimism. “They’ll look for flimsy excuses to blame everything that isn’t going well on foreigners. Easy solutions, easy principle: populism.”
(Reporting by Louis van Boxel-Woolf with; additional reporting by Dave Graham, Christine Uyanik and Ayhan Uyanik; editing by Dave Graham and Mark Heinrich)
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