Austria is heading for a victory for the far right in important elections for the country

More than six million Austrians will go to the polls this Sunday in important elections that could result in the far right’s first victory in the general election, a process that will allow us to check whether the good results achieved by the Freedom Party (FPO) achieved ) They finally consolidated at the European elections last June.

According to the latest voting intention polls, the formation of the controversial Herbert Kickl is the favorite with 27% of support, followed by the Christian Democrats (OVP) of the People’s Party of the Chancellor, Karl Nehammer, who currently governs together with the Greens. which he again rejected on Friday any form of agreement with the far right.

As this data indicates, the FPO starts as a clear favourite and is two percentage points above Nehammer’s party, but all indications are that the party will face serious difficulties in forming a government if it finally achieves that long-awaited victory.

Behind both formations are the Social Democrats of the SPO, with 21% of the support, the Greens and NEOS-La Nueva Austria and Foro Liberal, with nine percent of the votes. These formations are followed with 3% by the Communist Party and the Beer Party (BIER), the latter led by the singer of a punk rock band known as Marco Pogo, who surprised with 8% of the votes presidential elections and is committed to creating a ‘birrhocracy’. As in other European countries, the far right has based its campaign on desperation, discontent and existing economic problems, much of which it blames on increased migration and war in Ukraine. In this context, the FPO is now trying to take advantage of the latest setbacks suffered by the main formation in the government, affected by several corruption scandals.

But although the far right would be elevated, the resulting combination would once again leave the formation of a new coalition government in the hands of Nehammer, whose composition would be clearly simpler than that of an executive headed by Kickl, who was already foreign minister. the Interior between 2017 and 2019 in a government led by the OVP that was blown up because of the well-known ‘Ibiza case‘.

Everything indicates that the next government that comes out of the polls in Austria after this Sunday’s elections will have to deal with important energy issues, such as the problem of Austrian dependence on Russian gasa current topic during the invasion of Ukraine. The FPO is considered a party in this sense closest to Moscowso that it could seek agreements with Russia and make foreign policy towards Ukraine more difficult. A few years ago, the party signed a cooperation pact with the United Russia Party, the formation of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbanwhich has used the veto several times to block the delivery of military aid to Ukraine, maintains a close alliance with the FPO in the European Parliament and is seen by many as a role model for Kickl.