Is Austria’s far right poised for historic win in Sunday elections?

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Austria’s far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) appears set to win the popular vote on Sunday in what would be a historic first.

The FPO has been outpolling the governing centre-right Austrian People’s Party (OVP) and the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO) for the past year, partly driven by opposition to immigration.

“Anti-migration sentiment is now rising, empowered by the latest East German elections and success of the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD),” University of Helsinki lecturer in Eastern European studies Katalin Miklossy told Al Jazeera.

Germany’s far-right AfD became the first party in that country to win a state election three weeks ago, coming ahead of mainstream parties in Thuringia. It also performed well in Saxony.

“The German chancellor promised in desperation to close borders and send back illegal immigrants,” said Miklossy.

Now the Austrian far right seems set for another breakthrough.

The FPO’s campaign worries sceptics. FPO leader Herbert Kickl calls himself Volkskanzler, a “people’s chancellor”, the title used by Adolph Hitler in the 1930s. He supports a constitutional amendment recognising two sexes, effectively outlawing non-binary genders, a position advocated by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party. The FPO manifesto recommends “de-migration of uninvited foreigners” and a return to greater racial homogeny.

What is the FPO’s position on immigration?

The FPO supports deporting migrants who break the law, cutting down on – or banning – asylum approvals and admitting fewer migrants into the economy. It wants to limit social benefits to native Austrians.

One concern is that together with other European Union members opposed to immigration, it could push for major changes to the Asylum and Migration Pact, agreed last May after five years of negotiation.

The pact’s crucial innovation is that it obliges central European states to take on some of the burden of processing asylum seekers with front-line states like Greece and Italy.

Angeliki Dimitriadi, lead migration researcher at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), an Athens-based think tank, believes a revision is unlikely.

“There was already dissatisfaction amongst many MEPs in the European Parliament with the pact and a desire to seek to renegotiate specific parts, especially to harden policy on returns, immediately after it was agreed,” she told Al Jazeera.

“It is not only the Austrians but others who have expressed a desire to reopen certain chapters. But perhaps this is wishful thinking. The Commission has made it clear that it wants to proceed to implementation.”

Austria has long been conservative on migration.

In September 2015, after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would admit 800,000 asylum seekers, Balkan countries opened their borders to a stream of refugees who walked from Greece to the Austrian and German borders. Many Europeans feared a repeat performance in the spring.

In February 2016, Austria created a separate refugee monitoring system with the police chiefs of the former Yugoslavia, prevailing on North Macedonia to put up barbed wire along its border with Greece. This effectively closed the Balkan route, bottling up arrivals in Greece.

When the European Commission created a relocation programme in September 2015, asking member states to voluntarily take on asylum cases from Greece and Italy, Austria was one of six EU countries that refused.

Yet Austria has voted for the current pact which makes solidarity obligatory.

What is the FPO’s stance on the war in Ukraine?

Austria’s Russophilic tendencies during the Ukraine war are perhaps of even greater concern to the EU.

Kickl is critical of the money spent on defending Ukraine. So is the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, Slovakia’s Robert Fico and Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Austria and Hungary are the only EU and NATO members not to have sent weapons to Ukraine except through multilateral aid.

“They are already working together,” said Miklossy. “The [expected] outcome is accelerating the pressure on Ukraine for peace talks.”

Austria’s neutrality towards Russia has deep roots.

“Austria is a very special case because of … its special status during the Cold War era,” when it sat along the Iron Curtain, Jakub Landovsky, director of the Aspen Institute Central Europe told Al Jazeera. “There was a strong feeling that Russia can be reasoned with, that Russia is a good trade partner, which is not exactly the case.”

“The Russian desire during the Cold War era was to have this country neutralised like Finland,” he said.

Russia neutralised Austria partly by subsidising it with cheap energy. “From the 1960s onwards, Austria was able to import gas and oil cheaply and reliably from Russia via Ukraine,” wrote Tessa Szyszkowitz, a distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

Austria’s neutral stance also lowered its defence costs. After 1970, it never spent more than 1.5 percent of its economy on the armed forces, according to figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

“Neutrality has proven so popular because it has allowed Austria to invest more in social services, healthcare and education over the decades,” wrote Szyszkowitz.

Has the FPO enjoyed popular support in the past?

A quarter of a century ago, under Jorg Haider, the FPO placed second in the 1999 general election and entered a coalition with the OVP, which had placed third.

It was the first entry of a far-right party in government since the second world war and it shocked Europe.

But the FPO fell from grace in 2018 after its leader was caught on video trying to exchange political favours with what he believed to be a Russian oligarch’s niece.

The affair became known as the Ibiza scandal, after the Spanish island where the video was filmed.

“It looks as though the scandals, like the Ibiza scandal, haven’t made an impact in the credibility of this party,” said Landovsky.

The current government under Chancellor Karl Nehammer has attempted to float the idea that neutrality towards Russia no longer pays, and security must come first – if necessary, at the expense of the economy.

“The big question is whether the general populace feels the same way and accepts the current hard economic reality,” said Landovsky, “or if they want to continue with this appeasement dialogue policy, which I think is very ineffective in dealing with Russian aggression.”

Will the FPO govern?

The FPO is not expected to win enough votes for single-party rule, meaning it will most likely have to form a coalition to govern. That would mean forming a consensus on touchy issues like migration and foreign policy.

Nehammer, leader of the OVP, has ruled out working with Kickl, but hasn’t ruled out working with the FPO. It is also conceivable that the SPO and OVP would form a coalition to keep the FPO out of government.

Austria’s President Alexander Van Der Bellen, a former spokesman for the Green Party, is also a powerful gatekeeper. He would have to approve cabinet appointments, filtering out extremists, and has the power to dismiss the cabinet.

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