Freedom Party of Austria wins first general election
Date
9/30/2024 8:56:22 AM
(MENAFN) The right-wing Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) has achieved its first-ever victory in a general election, pulling ahead of Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party (OVP) by three points, according to an exit poll released on Sunday evening.
The FPO garnered 29.1 percent of the votes, surpassing the OVP, which secured 26.2 percent, and the center-left Social Democrats, who received 20.4 percent, as reported by Austria’s ORF broadcaster. The liberal NEOS party and the Greens finished in fourth and fifth places with 8.8 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively.
This outcome follows the FPO’s narrow victory over the OVP in the recent European Parliament election, where it won 25.4 percent of the votes compared to the OVP’s 24.5 percent.
Although the FPO has been a prominent player in Austrian politics since the 1950s, it has never previously eclipsed either the center-right OVP or the Social Democrats to claim the top spot in a national election. The party entered a conservative coalition in 1999 and again in 2018 but was ousted from government the following year due to a scandal involving its then-leader, Heinz-Christian Strache.
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