The opposition Austrian ultranationalist party FPÖ won this Sunday (06/09/2024) the European elections in Austria, with 27% of the votes, ahead of the ruling Christian Democrat party ÖVP, which would obtain 23.5%, according to the trend projection presented by ORF public television. The social democratic party SPÖ came third, with 23.0%, according to this poll and awaiting the final results, which will be announced at 23:00 CET.
The FPÖ, led in these elections by MEP Harald Vilimsky, is an ultranationalist party with a long tradition, with Eurocritical and pro-Russian positions. If these results are confirmed, it would be the first time in Austrian history that the party has led a national election. “Austrians have sent a clear signal today that they have a sincere desire for positive change with the FPÖ,” Vilimsky said. Unlike other ultranationalists in Europe, such as in France or Italy, he refused to distance himself in the European electoral campaign from the German far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The two co-leaders of the German far-right party, Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel, also celebrated today a “great result” in the European elections. “We are the second force (in the entire country) and the first in the east!” Weidel exclaimed euphorically after conceding the polls carried out by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen and infratest dimap, which gave between 16.0% and 16.5% to this force, ahead of the Social Democrats of the Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and only behind the Christian Democrats of the CDU.
In turn, Chrupalla pointed out on the second public channel, ZDF, that the party has “achieved a great result” and “the voters have been loyal to us, even in recent months”, despite the scandals and massive demonstrations in the German streets against the extreme right. With this “record result, we naturally also have a tailwind for our negotiations” with other forces when it comes to forming a group in the new European Parliament, he stressed. “We have a considerable size as a delegation. They will need us to do politics against the erroneous policies of Ursula von der Leyen,” she said.
The far-right group in the European Parliament, Identity and Democracy (ID), decided at the end of May to expel the entire AfD delegation after the head of this formation’s list for the European elections, Maximilian Krah, who ended up resigning , stated that in the Nazi SS organization “not everyone was criminal”, with which the National Rally (RN) of the French Marine Le Pen and the League of the Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini distanced themselves from the formation and affirmed that they would not share again with her parliamentary group in the European Parliament.
lgc (afp, efe)
