Populist anti-immigration right Freedom Party wins Austria parliament election | Eastern NC Now

According to exit polls in the parliamentary election in Austria, the populist nationalist anti-immigration Freedom Party has scored a first place win for the first time in its history, leapfrogging both of the traditional establishment parties.  The traditional conservative Austrian Peoples Party came in second, with the center-left Social Democrats third.

According to exit poll results, the Freedom Party won 29.1%, the Peoples Party 26.2%, and the Social Democrats 20.4%.   This represents almost a doubling of the vote for the Freedom Party which won only 16.2% in the last parliamentary election, and a double digit loss for the Peoples Party which had won 37.5% in the last election, and a lesser loss for the Social Democrats who scored 21.2% last time.

The Freedom Party has served as the junior member of three past national coalition governments, two with the Peoples Party and one with the Social Democrats. There are currently several coalitions between the Freedom Part;y and the Peoples Party in state govenrments in Austria,  It will be a challenge to egos, however for one of the traditional parties to serve as a junior partner to the Freedom Party.

Toward the end of the campaign there was a one on one debate between the leaders of the Freedom Party and the Austrian Peoples Party and the major issue was who would get tougher on illegal immigration.  That might make it difficult for the Peoples Party to sell its own voters on a coalition with the soft-on- immigration Social Democrats.

The far left Green Party suffered a loss of vote share and is expected to lose about a third of the seats it held in the outgoing parliament.

There is no word yet on whether the satirical Beer Party which advocated a keg in every home crossed the 5% threshold to win seats.  A number of polls showed them winning enough voters but polls closer to election day pointed the other way.  UPDATE: the Beer Party did not pass the threshhold.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/austria-right-wing-fpo-achieves-historic-victory/

Next door in the Czech Republic, results in their runoff for 18 Senate seats were similar with a big advance by the populist / nationalist right at the expense, largely, of the traditional right.  The populist / nationalist right ANO won eight seats and a populist / nationalist ally won a ninth.  ANO had only one seat in this block of one third of the Senate going into the election, so they gained seven seats.  The traditional conservative Civic Democrats were second with five seats, but they had ten before the election, so they lost five.

ANO is the Czech word for "Yes" and the acronyn stands for the full name of the party which is Action of Disgruntled Citizens.  It is led by former prime minister Andrej Babis who has been nicknamed "the Czech Trump".  Babis is a close ally of Hungary's conservative prime minister Viktor Orban.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/czech-senate-election-spells-further-disaster-for-ruling-centrist-bloc/