Former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz was expected to emerge victorious from yesterday’s snap parliamentary election, but it remained unclear whether the conservative leader would lean left or to the far right in seeking the coalition partner he needs for a majority.
The election follows the collapse in May of Kurz’s coalition with the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) after a video sting scandal that forced then-Austrian vice chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache of the FPO to step down.
Kurz, 33, has remained largely unscathed from the scandal, even gaining voters from the FPO as its support has slipped to roughly one-fifth of the electorate from a little more than a quarter in the last vote in 2017.
Photo: AP
“We are very confident. We have a clear goal, namely to come first in this election. We want to improve our result,” Kurz told reporters before casting his vote in Vienna, referring to the 31.5 percent that his People’s Party (OVP) achieved in 2017.
Few doubt he will meet those objectives.
The overall picture since the scandal’s immediate aftermath has been remarkably stable. Opinion polls have generally shown Kurz’s OVP far ahead on about one-third of the vote, the Social Democrats slightly ahead of the FPO and the resurgent Greens a distant fourth.
Kurz has said he would talk to all parties if he wins the election.
His two most likely choices are either to ally with the FPO again or with the Greens and liberal Neos. A centrist coalition with the Social Democrats is possible, but unlikely under their current leadership.
Surveys suggest the environment is voters’ top concern, which has lifted the Greens from less than 4 percent of the vote at the last election to about 13 percent in recent opinion polls.
While they might be able to give Kurz and his party a narrow majority in parliament, he is unlikely to want to be at the mercy of a small number of its left-wing lawmakers.
That means that if he does ally with the Greens he would probably seek a three-way deal including the liberal, pro-business Neos.
It could take time for the Greens and Kurz to convince their supporters about working with each other.
Many Greens voters see Kurz as their enemy since he brought the far right to power, while many of Kurz’s core voters, such as farmers and big business, are wary of the left-wing Greens.
As the campaign wound up last week, the FPO sought to focus attention on its core issue of migration.
“It is hard to so say what will happen,” FPO leader Norbert Hofer said.
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