Just as in German elections last month, today’s Austrian voters also went to the right, the nationalist right in fact, and went for 31 year old Mr Sebastian Kurz, who is set to become the world’s youngest national leader. Mr Kurz’ Freedom party (Conservative) is bound to win some 32% of the votes, the left-wing Social Democrats (Socialist) will likely become second with 27% whilst the nationalist Freedom Party FPO (Nationalist) will battle them for that second place, they are currently trailing with 26%.
Given that he needs 50%, political analysts widely expect that Mr Kurz will form a likely coalition with that nationalist FPO to rule on a right-wing anti-immigration platform.
How did Mr Kurz do it? Well, he was the youngest ever foreign minister before (appointed at the age of 27 in 2013) who during the immigrant crisis in Europe (2015-2016) decided that Austria would unilaterally block immigrants from entering via the Balkan route (after a huge influx of undocumented migrants and refugees from the Middle East and North Africa entering via Turkey and Greece into the Balkans), going against Ms Merkel of Germany. This gave him high marks with voters.
Secondly, Austria has not been hit by any major terrorist attacks and they recently introduced a burqa ban. The anti-immigration feeling is very high. For better understanding of our US readers, if those numbers were to be translated into US politics, one could say that Trump / Bannon and the GOP took 60% of the vote, leaving the Democrats quite wiped out.
The losers on the far left were the Austrian greens who will most likely go out of parliament.
Mr Kurz already has a nickname with his admirers. He is known as "Wunderwuzzi" (someone who can walk on water), and because of his good looks is often compared to other young world leaders like Emmanuel Macron of France and Justin Trudeau of Canada.
His election promises you ask? Lower taxes, stop immigration and close Islamic schools in Austria.
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As the whole of Europe swings right, a young Austrian wins an election on a right wing program. Sounds familiar enough.