Austria set to elect youngest EU leader
15 Oct 2017 5:14 PM GMT
Vienna: Austrians were voting on Sunday in a snap election tipped to see conservative Sebastian Kurz, 31, become the EU's youngest leader and form an alliance with the far-Right, in the bloc's latest populist test.
A rightward shift in the wealthy European Union member of 8.75 million people would be a fresh headache for Brussels, as it already struggles with Britain's decision to leave and the rise of nationalists in Germany, Hungary, Poland and elsewhere.
But all signs indicate that Austrians, fed up with a record influx of asylum-seekers, want to swap the gridlocked centrist rule for a more hard-line government for the first time in a decade.
The People's Party (OeVP) — rebranded by Kurz as his "personal movement" — is projected to reap more than 30 percent of the vote with pledges to go tough on migrants and easy on taxes.
The fresh-faced "whizz-kid" is likely to form a coalition with the eurosceptic Freedom Party (FPOe), forecast to place second or third with at least 25 percent.
Founded by ex-Nazis, the FPOe almost won the presidency last year and topped opinion polls, before Kurz stole votes with his radical OeVP makeover in spring.
FPOe chief Heinz-Christian Strache, 48, railed against asylum-seekers and vowed to stop Austrians from "becoming a minority in our own homeland", at a rally the day before yesterday.
Meanwhile, embattled Chancellor Christian Kern, 51, and his once-mighty Social Democrats (SPOe) could be flushed into opposition after their promising campaign suffered blunders and scandals.
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