Austria recently held their national election on October 15th, with Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz coming out victorious. Kurz will become the world’s youngest national leader at the age of 31. The new Austrian chancellor has been compared to Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau, the young leaders of France and Canada respectively, and has been nicknamed as “Wunderwuzzi,” which can be loosely translated as “Wonder Boy.” Kurz was also appointed as Europe’s youngest foreign minister in 2013 when he was 27. He also became the leader of the center-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) in May.
Kurz and his party won the election with over 31 percent of the vote. The far-right Freedom Party placed second with a little over 27 percent; the center-left Social Democratic Party of Austria received 26 percent of the vote. This is only the third time since the end of World War II that the People’s Party has defeated the Social Democrats, which Kurz calls a “historic victory.”
For decades, moderate policies have dominated Austria but Kurz’s win foretells a change in the political climate. To obtain a majority in parliament, Kurz is expected to form a coalition with the Freedom Party, a far-right, anti-immigration, populist party.
Far-right parties have been gaining popularity in Europe recently. Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland party reached parliament for the first time in their history last month and Marine le Pen, a far-right leader, was runner-up in France’s presidential election earlier this year.
Immigration was a hot topic during the race and Kurz plans to impose stricter border laws. Kurz has pledged to shut down immigration routes, place a limit on benefits received by refugees, and restrict immigrants from gaining benefits until their fifth year of living in Austria. Kurz and his party are also promising faster deportations of asylum-seekers whose requests are denied in an attempt to hamper radical Islamic extremism.
Kurz and his right-leaning stance on immigration reflects growing frustration within Austria. The country was known as one of the more welcoming nations in Europe especially during the refugee crisis in 2015. Hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, many being Muslim, passed through Austria but tens of thousands did not leave and applied for asylum protection. Negative public sentiment concerning immigration has resulted in response to the social, economic, and cultural changes that have occurred from the large influx of migrants.
If Kurz partners with the Freedom Party, it will dissolve a decades-old tradition of a coalition between the People’s Party and the Social Democrats. Changing this tradition and bringing a far-right party into the government has some worried. A former Nazi officer founded the Freedom Party and the current leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, was once a neo-Nazi youth activist. In 2000, The European Union imposed sanctions against Austria the last time the Freedom Party was in power because of its disapproval with the party’s Nazi connections. Yet, what party Kurz will partner with, and the implications that will arise, remains to be determined.