Extreme victory in Salzburg elections

According to the provisional final result, the FPÖ rose by 6.9 percentage points to 25.7 percent. She overtook Prime Minister Wilfried Haslauer’s conservative ÖVP, which secured first place but fell 7.4 percentage points to 30.4 percent.

For the first time since 1945, the communists (KPÖ), who are close to the people, are back in the Salzburg state parliament with more than 11.7 percent of the vote. The KPÖ candidates had announced that they would donate part of their politicians’ salaries to this cause.

After the election campaign, which was dominated by issues such as inflation and affordable housing, the FPÖ overtook the social-democratic SPÖ, which came in third with 17.9 percent (minus 2.2 percentage points).

The Greens and the liberal Neos, with whom the ÖVP currently forms a coalition in the Salzburg region, also lost votes. Haslauer described the result on election night as “very painful”. Before the elections he had indicated that he had no sympathy for the FPÖ. Nevertheless, he did not rule out cooperation with the right on Sunday.

The vote is considered the third ballot test for federal politics this year. In elections in Lower Austria and Carinthia in January, the FPÖ won about a quarter of the vote. In national opinion polls, the right-wing party has been in first place since the beginning of this year, ahead of the SPÖ and the Chancellor ÖVP. (sda/dpa)