Voters in Austria drift to right ahead of election

Voters in Austria have drifted further to the right in the run-up to an important regional election, according to pollsters.

Surveys from last November suggest the far-right Freedom Party is the nation's most popular party and it now enjoys support from around 28 percent of the electorate — a rise of 11 percent on where it stood in the middle of 2020.

Experts say the party's growing popularity is down to its populist anti-immigrant stance, its past opposition to strict novel coronavirus rules, and fears among voters about fast-rising inflation and the country's cost-of-living crisis.

Thomas Hofer, an Austrian political analyst, told the Financial Times newspaper the party, which is also known as the FPO, has a core message of "us down here versus him up there" and that "they have a huge amount going in their favor" following years in the political doldrums.

The latest polls show more mainstream parties are struggling to keep up with the FPO, with the Social Democrats now getting support from 25 percent of voters, and the center-right People's party, or OVP, garnering 21 percent backing. The Greens are currently being supported by 10 percent of the electorate.

Citizens of the European Union member state fear the country has lost control of its borders, the FPO claims, and the situation caused the OVP-led coalition government to block the aspirations of Bulgaria and Romania last month to join the EU's free-movement area, known as the Schengen zone.

Pollsters believe the FPO's growing support could result in the party replacing the OVP at the helm of the state government of Lower Austria when regional elections are held this month, and they say the party looks to be on course to replace the OVP at the head of the national government, when the next general election is held, which must happen before the end of 2024.

Chancellor Karl Nehammer and his OVP-led government decamped to the town of Mauerbach, to the west of the capital Vienna, on Tuesday to try to address the growing threat from the far-right.

The Deutsche Welle news agency said he has a difficult task, with his nation wrestling with a heavy reliance on Russian natural gas, which shot up in price recently as a result of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The gas cost rise has fueled the country's rampant inflation.

The nation of 9 million, which is not a NATO member, has enjoyed historically close ties with Russia. It now has to walk a fine line between being an in-step EU member and satisfying the increasingly right-wing attitudes of its voters.

Ahead of the get-together, Nehammer said: "We want to emerge stronger from these crises, which also means, above all, that we regain independence in important areas and thus protect our security and freedom."

His rhetoric reminded many of that of the ascendant FPO.