Austrians vote on Sunday in a snap parliamentary election that conservative leader Sebastian Kurz looks set to win, but he will still need a coalition partner to secure a majority and it remains unclear whom he will pick.
France 24 reports that the election follows the collapse in May of Kurz’s coalition with the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) after a video sting scandal that forced FPO Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache to step down.
Since June, the country has been led by a caretaker government.
But voters also appear to be overlooking Kurz’ removal. Support for his center-right/conservative Austrian People’s Party continues with polls showing them at roughly 34 percent.
The election could play out well for Austria’s Green party, who lost their parliamentary seats in 2017, but are now polling around 12 percent.
Kurz, 33, has emerged largely unscathed from the scandal, even gaining voters from the FPO as its support has slipped to roughly a fifth of the electorate from just over a quarter in the last vote in 2017. On the left, there has been some shift in support from the Social Democrats to the resurgent Greens.
But the overall picture since the scandal’s immediate aftermath has been remarkably stable.
Opinion polls have generally shown Kurz’s People’s Party (OVP) far ahead on roughly a third of the vote, the Social Democrats slightly ahead of the FPO and the Greens a distant fourth.
