It was a historic victory, but it was accompanied by a strong sense of bitterness. Herbert Kickl, leader of Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), celebrated delivering a "piece of history" in front of his supporters at a brasserie on the Vienna University campus on Sunday, September 29, following his unprecedented score in the parliamentary elections. However, he acknowledged the limitations of this triumph in the face of opponents who were behaving "as if the elections hadn't happened" and maintaining their refusal to form a coalition with him.

"I'll give them two or three days to think it over. Let's hope they come to their senses. It would also be in their own interests," the radical FPÖ leader told the crowd, in his customary threatening tone. With 28.8% of the vote, Kickl achieved the highest score ever obtained by the far right in Austria since 1945, triggering a political earthquake in this country of 9 million inhabitants. However, the former interior minister is not certain of coming to power, as no other party is willing to join forces with him in the National Council, the lower house of the Austrian parliament.

This victory reveals the radicalization of part of the Austrian electorate against a backdrop of record inflation, high immigration and growing skepticism about the progress of the war in Ukraine. Since taking the helm of the party in 2021, Kickl has led the FPÖ to adopt a deeply conspiracist, anti-vax, climate-skeptic and identitarian discourse. "Covid played a big role; the FPÖ was the only party against mass lockdowns and compulsory vaccinations," hailed Heimo Lepuschitz, a long-standing party communicator, who was part of the guest list on Sunday evening.

Closely aligned with the radical ideology of Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD), the FPÖ is no longer even bothered by scandals linked to its Nazi past. Deveral party executives were filmed attending a funeral in which an SS anthem was sung, just two days before the election. Kickl's platform advocated the "remigration" of foreigners and naturalized citizens "when they attack [their] values" and the aim of restoring "homogeneity" to Austrians, and he repeated that he intended to "stop all asylum applications."

Coming second with just 26.3% of the vote, Chancellor Karl Nehammer acknowledged that the result was a bitter pill for conservatives to swallow. "Our duty is to understand why the radicalized received more votes than us," he added. His party, the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), dropped 11 points on the 2019 poll. The embodiment of the party's traditional Christian Democrat wing, Nehammer again ruled out an alliance with Kickl, whom he considers "lost in conspiracy theories."

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