According to the latest data provided by Bloomberg, Chancellor Neuhammer’s party is losing votes to right-wing nationalists. The Austrian People’s Party lost its absolute majority in Lower Austria (less than 40% of the vote), and had to seek an alliance for the first time in two decades.

The first data released by public television showed that the anti-immigrant Freedom Party rose to second place.

On Sunday, January 29, around 1.3 million citizens – corresponding to one in five Austrians who have the right to vote – were called to elect a new state parliament in Lower Austria (Niederösterreich).

The land is the stronghold and power center of Chancellor Karl Nehhammer’s current party, the Österreichische Volkspartei (ÖVP), and so political Austria has been boiling over in recent weeks. The current governor, Johanna Mickle-Leitner (58 years old), dominated the election campaign, including in the mass media.

Policy and strategies

The conservative party is in danger of losing its absolute majority in the Austrian parliament and possibly also in the government of the land, which is formed according to a proportional system. And the loss of the main fiefdom will further weaken the party at the federal level, as the ÖVP has previously suffered from corruption scandals.

While Mikl-Leitner shook hands with voters on the campaign trail, her party colleague, Chancellor Karl Nehhammer, also entrenched in Lower Austria’s ÖVP party, spoke publicly and tried to give the candidate a boost by reviving immigration and asylum.

“Many political observers also see Nehhammer’s veto against the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to Schengen in connection with the inevitable defeat in the elections in Lower Austria,” writes the Augsburger Allgemeine. In a report last month, a German publication noted that “refugees are becoming political pawns in Austria.”

The news is updated