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How did Austria’s far right win its first national election since World War II?

The Freedom Party secured the first far-right national parliamentary election victory in post-World War II Austria on Sept. 29, finishing ahead of the governing conservatives after tapping into anxieties about immigration, inflation, Ukraine, and other issues. But its chances of governing were unclear.

Preliminary official results showed the Freedom Party finishing first with 29.2% of the vote and Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party was second with 26.5%. The center-left Social Democrats were in third place with 21%. The outgoing government – a coalition of Mr. Nehammer’s party and the environmentalist Greens – lost its majority in the lower house of parliament.

Herbert Kickl, a former interior minister and longtime campaign strategist who has led the Freedom Party since 2021, wants to be chancellor.

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