Austria's new electoral earthquake

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The inclusion of the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) in Austria's ruling coalition in 2000 was a shock throughout Europe. Today's more muted reaction to the FPÖ topping Austria's national elections for the first time reflects the extent to which the far right has normalized itself despite the gains it has made since then – from the AfD in Germany to Geert Wilders in the Netherlands to Marine Le Pen in France. . Other parties said they would not allow Austrian Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl to become chancellor of Austria in a coalition, which could leave him out of government. But the recent breakthrough by the Freedom Party of Austria crystallizes the dilemmas facing countries grappling with a rising far right across the continent.

Like populists elsewhere, Kickl's Freedom Party of Austria owes its success in part to disillusionment with the mainstream parties that have dominated government in Austria since the 1950s. The center-right People's Party (ÖVP) has been plagued by recent corruption scandals; The Social Democrats (SPO) have taken an inward turn under a leftist leader. The underlying basis of the Freedom Party's support is also resentment against immigration, in a country of nine million people, with 1.8 million born abroad.

Record net migration in the past two years has exceeded levels even during the mass influx of migrants into Europe from Syria and elsewhere in 2015-2016 – although this time many of them were refugees from Ukraine. (The Freedom Party of Austria, long sympathetic to Moscow, wants to end Austrian aid to Kiev through the European Union.)

However, Kickl has skillfully added an additional electoral base, especially among young people – by channeling discontent with the coronavirus lockdowns and the aborted mandatory vaccination law from 2022. The Freedom Party portrays itself as a defender of personal freedoms against the authoritarian establishment. Flirting with taboos from Austria's political past—election posters dubbed him a “Volkskanzler,” a phrase used by Hitler—Kickel deployed provocative policies designed to rile the mainstream and bolster support among anti-establishment voters.

Austria faces the risk of excluding the Austrian Freedom Party from the government, which will only strengthen it. Either way, its success sends warning signals to the European Union. It shows that trying to “tame” far-right parties by exposing them to the government has no guarantee of success. Since its shift to the hard right under Jörg Haider in the 1990s, the Freedom Party of Austria has twice participated in the ruling coalition. She exited her last term in government in 2019 after then-leader Heinz-Christian Strache was filmed offering sleazy deals to a woman pretending to be the Russian oligarch's niece. Now a new leader has achieved his best electoral result ever.

Moreover, she achieved her breakthrough not by appearing moderate in her policies, like Le Pen and Italy's Giorgia Meloni, but by turning to the right. Like the AfD in Germany, it has engaged with ideas related to identity, including “remigration,” or the deportation of people with migrant backgrounds.

The electoral success of the Freedom Party of Austria would reinforce the outsized role it has long played in European politics. Kickl was an architect of a new right-wing movement this summer, Patriots for Europe, with Hungary's illiberal Viktor Orbán and former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. It has absorbed the parties of Wilders, Le Pen, Spain's Vox and others, becoming the third largest faction in the European Parliament.

Although not all of its members are in government, through its own activities and the hard right's tendency to drag center-right parties to the right, the group is prepared to exert its influence on issues ranging from support for Ukraine and immigration policy to climate skepticism. In 2000, the progress achieved by the Freedom Party of Austria seemed like a temporary aberration. Despite all the efforts that Europe has made since then to tame the extreme right or keep it out of siege, it has now become clear that, for the foreseeable future, it will constitute a key element in the political scene.

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