The election has been dominated by the issue of immigration in a city through which tens of thousands of migrants have passed in the past month, a lot of them on their way to Germany, during Europe’s worst migration crisis in decades. Final results, not counting absentee voting, were expected later Sunday.
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Although Strache’s party improved on its best performance in Vienna, achieved under his charismatic predecessor Joerg Haider in 1996, it was beaten far more soundly than polls before the vote had predicted.
Early results showed that Michael Häupl, 66, the mayor, would be returned with 39.5 per cent of the vote, but the far-right Freedom party had won a record 31 per cent.
The survey had support for the Greens, now in a coalition with the Social Democrats in Vienna, falling to 10.5-12.5 percent, while the centre-right People’s Party (OVP) was on 8-10 percent.
Both the Socialists, the senior partners in Vienna’s two-party coalition and the right-wing Freedom Party were above 30 percent, with only a few percentage points separating them.
The turnout for Sunday’s election also saw a significant 6.4 percent increase on Vienna’s last election, taking this year’s figure up to 77 percent. Alluding to the Freedom Party’s anti-immigrant message, he said he remained convinced that people fleeing terror and hunger had to be helped, adding: “That’s what I have stood for in my whole political life”. Its current leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, is running for mayor of Vienna.
Strache expressed hope for his party’s “best showing in history”, saying he hoped to at least match the Socialist showing. The Social Democrats have governed Vienna since the end of the Second World War.
The Freedom Party already has made huge gains in several provincial elections this year, at the expense of the Socialists and the centrist People’s Party, but it hasn’t won outright.
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Runoff mayoral elections also are being held Sunday in 44 communities in Upper Austria province. The city has been governed by the Socialists since the end of the war.
