Volkswacht Bodensee - Austria far right eyes historic victory in tight polls

In line with other European far-right parties, the radical FPOe has seen its popularity surge in recent months.

The Freedom Party (FPOe) has been part of past Austrian coalitions, but it may not find partners to lead a government, even if it comes first on Sunday.

"It is a time of change. In the past years the FPOe has never been that strong," Johanna Irrenfried, 32, an orthoptist from Vienna, told AFP.

Cementing the FPOe's image as an anti-establishment party, its leader Herbert Kickl has campaigned on slogans such as: "Courageously try something new" and fed on voter anger over migration, inflation and Covid restrictions.

But conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer has closed the gap in recent weeks, with his People's Party (OeVP) currently at 25 percent support in opinion polls, just behind the FPOe on 27 percent.

- 'Decisive election' -

Nehammer has "succeeded in presenting the party as at the centre of the political spectrum," Andreas Eisl, researcher at the Jacques Delors Institute, told AFP.

Widespread flooding caused by Storm Boris across central and eastern Europe this month, which briefly halted the campaign, highlighted concerns about climate change, which the FPOe largely dismisses.

"We don't feed off problems, but solve them," Nehammer, 51, told reporters at the party headquarters in Vienna on Friday, promising "stability instead of chaos".

Kickl, 55, who took over and rejuvenated a scandal-tainted party in 2021, on Friday railed against Nehammer.

"We need something new for our country," he told a throng of cheering supporters at a rally in front of the main cathedral in Vienna's historic first district.

On the war in Ukraine, he slammed EU sanctions against Russia.

"It is a decisive election on Sunday," Rachel Schwarzboeck, 74, an Austrian retiree with Jewish and Polish roots, told AFP, adding that she would not vote the FPOe as it was formed by former Nazis.

"I don't want a Nazi regime in power in Austria," she said.

- 'Creative solutions' -

Nehammer -- who currently heads an uneasy coalition with the Greens -- on Friday reiterated his refusal to work with sharp-tongued Kickl, who has called himself the future "Volkskanzler," the people's chancellor, as Adolf Hitler was termed in the 1930s.

President Alexander Van der Bellen has also expressed his reluctance to see Kickl lead the Alpine country, where more than 6.3 million people are eligible to vote.

Thwarting a Kickl chancellorship could be a three-party coalition -- another first for Austria -- headed by the OeVP, with the Social Democrats who are polling at just above 20 percent and a third party, probably the liberal NEOS.

If the OeVP wins the most seats or performs almost as strongly as the FPOe, analysts see a possibility of a coalition with the far right as a junior partner.

The two parties' views converge "on many subjects", said analyst Eisl, and "creative solutions" could be found to deal with Kickl.

The first government between the conservatives and FPOe in 2000 set off widespread protests and sanctions from Brussels.

But since then, radical parties have been on the rise throughout Europe, forming governments in Italy and the Netherlands.

Past OeVP-FPOe governments have been short lived.

The last one, headed by charismatic then OeVP leader Sebastian Kurz, collapsed over an FPOe corruption scandal in 2019, after just a year and a half in power.

M.Betschart--VB