Hard-Right Austrian party secures major election victory with pledge to close borders and end Ukraine aid

Voters in Austria handed a first-ever general election victory to the hard-right Freedom Party (FPO), preliminary results showed.

Both the FPO and the runner-up, the ruling conservative Austrian People’s Party (OVP), ran on pledges to tighten asylum laws and crack down on illegal immigration.

The FPO finished around 2.5 percentage points ahead of Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s conservative OVP to capture some 29 per cent of the vote, its best result ever.

However, FPO party leader Herbert Kickl remains controversial and roundly disliked by the other party leaders, who immediately united in rejecting the notion of forming a coalition with him.

If the FPO cannot persuade another party to ally with Kickl, it could end their hopes of forming a government and open the door to a coalition of more moderate parties.

The party, whose first leader was a former Nazi lawmaker, has sought to distance itself from its past, and in 2019 helped pass a law allowing foreign descendants of Austrian victims of National Socialism to acquire Austrian citizenship.

Kickl said he wants migrants who have entered Austria illegally to be removed and very strict criteria enforced on legal immigration. This includes no asylum applications on the grounds that any asylum seeker who comes to Austria has crossed a safe country, with “pushbacks” used at the border.

The party also rejects the European Union’s Pact on Migration and Asylum, which aims to secure the bloc’s borders and divide up migrants among members, in order to pressure the EU to toughen up its borders.

Kickl opposes aid to Ukraine and wants sanctions against Russia withdrawn, arguing they hurt Austria more than Moscow. Supporters say the FPO’s “Austria First” policies will curb illegal immigration and lift the economy. Critics worry it could herald a more authoritarian state.

Political science professor at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, Kathrin Stainer-Haemmerle, said if Kickl did manage to become chancellor, Austria’s role in the European Union would be “significantly different” adding, “[he] has often said that (Hungarian Prime Minister) Viktor Orban is a role model for him and he will stand by him.”

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The FPO has combined its tough talk on immigration with criticism of Islam. The issue took centre stage last month when police arrested a teenager with North Macedonian roots on suspicion of masterminding a failed Islamic State-inspired attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna.

Running on the campaign slogan “Fortress Austria”, the FPO promoted “remigration” and preventing asylum from becoming a pathway to eventual Austrian citizenship. The party also said it would make “thorough checks” on the citizenship of naturalised Austrians.

The policy has unsettled some who feel the party, which dropped some of its more polarizing slogans in the campaign, is demonising foreigners.

The FPO has denied this, saying asylum seekers are a drain on state resources, and draws attention to crimes some of them commit.

Hedy, a social worker and Austrian citizen who arrived as a refugee from Afghanistan said: “The FPO routinely talk about refugees and asylum seekers as rapists and thieves and drug dealers.

“Something very similar happened to the Jews in Vienna before the Second World War”, he said, adding that the FPO, which wants to ban “political Islam”, would embolden xenophobes.

In a TV debate earlier this year, Kickl called Adolf Hitler the “biggest mass murderer in human history”, as he roundly denounced the Nazi dictator’s legacy.

Head of the Austrian Association of Jewish Students Alon Ishay said he saw some parallels between the targeting of Jews in the early Nazi era and attitudes to Muslims now, saying “There are rhetorical similarities when you talk about deportation, when you talk about taking people’s citizenship away.”

FPO-backer Mehmet Ozay disagreed, saying that Muslims were free to do as they liked in Austria. He said: “If there were daily attacks by FPO voters I would understand the fear that things would get even more extreme if Kickl came to power…But that’s not how it is. It’s just fear stirred up by the other parties.”