Austrian far right pledges to win Sunday’s election as tight race winds up

Austrian far right pledges to win Sunday’s election as tight race winds up


Austrian Chancellor and Head of the Austrian People’s Party (OeVP) Karl Nehammer (L) and chairman and top candidate of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPOe) Herbert Kickl (R) meet during their pre-election tv debate hosted by Austrian state network ORF in Vienna, Austria on September 23, 2024.

Joe Klamar | Afp | Getty Images

The leader of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPO), Herbert Kickl, pledged on Friday to win this weekend’s parliamentary election in what would be a historic first, even as opinion polls show the race is now too close to call.

Doggedly keeping grievances about immigration in focus, Kickl’s FPO has had a clear lead in polls for more than a year, helped by voters’ frustration with inflation above the European Union average and Austria’s misfiring economy.

Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s conservative Austrian People’s Party (OVP), however, has closed the gap to within the margin of error, as the OVP sought to present him as a statesman in contrast to the often abrasive and polarizing Kickl.

“The people are the wind at our backs and the system is our headwind and the people are always stronger than the system, and we will prove it on Sunday,” the 55-year-old Kickl said in a typically populist address at a closing campaign event in front of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in the heart of Vienna.

“This time we will be number 1,” he said, underscoring the fact that it would be the first time the party founded in the 1950s had won a parliamentary election. It secured its first national victory this year when it beat the OVP by less than a percentage point in June’s European election.

People walk past election campaign billboards showing Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer of the Austrian People’s Party (OeVP) and Herbet Kickl of the far-right Austria Freedom Party (FPOe) on September 24, 2024 in Vienna, Austria. Austria is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections on September 29.

Thomas Kronsteiner | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Although new arrivals have plummeted in the past year, Kickl has pledged tough measures to prevent migrants from entering landlocked Austria, such as creating a “Fortress Austria” that forces people back at the border, and stopping granting asylum.

The FPO and OVP overlap on other aspects of immigration and economic issues like tax cuts, but Nehammer has depicted Kickl as an extremist, saying he is open to a coalition with the FPO but his party will not enter a government with Kickl in it.

Nehammer himself has possibly benefited from his stewardship of the response to severe flooding that hit Austria this month.

Whoever wins, they will fall far short of an absolute majority and will need a coalition partner to form a stable government. The FPO’s only apparent option would be the OVP, while the OVP could turn to the FPO or potentially form a three-way alliance with the Social Democrats and a smaller party.

In a clear swipe at Kickl, Nehammer told a closing rally that he and his party stood “for the politics of the centre, against the radical, for stability instead of chaos. We do not live off of problems, we solve them.”



Source

Toyota Industries’ shares nosedive on  billion buyout deal — steepest fall in 10 months
World

Toyota Industries’ shares nosedive on $33 billion buyout deal — steepest fall in 10 months

The Toyota Industries Corp. logo at the company’s Nagakusa plant in Obu, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images Shares of Toyota Industries slumped as much as 13% Wednesday, after Toyota Group’s reported 4.7 trillion yen ($33 billion) deal to take the company private. That includes a tender offer of $26 billion for shares of Toyota Industries […]

Read More
Australia’s first-quarter economic growth stays flat at 1.3%, missing estimates
World

Australia’s first-quarter economic growth stays flat at 1.3%, missing estimates

Sydney Harbour and the skyline of the central business district (CBD) in Sydney, Australia, on Tuesday, April 29, 2025. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images Australia’s economy grew less than expected in the first quarter this year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said in a statement Wednesday, as growth stalled amid the simmering global trade […]

Read More
Asia-Pacific markets set to open mostly higher after tech rally lifts Wall Street
World

Asia-Pacific markets set to open mostly higher after tech rally lifts Wall Street

Landscape of Songdo International City. Incheon, South Korea. Photograph By Kangheewan. | Moment | Getty Images Asia-Pacific markets were set to open mostly higher Wednesday after Wall Street rose on the back of a tech rally, led by chipmaker Nvidia. Shares in the artificial intelligence darling advanced nearly 3%, extending Monday’s gains and driving Nvidia’s […]

Read More