Austria is no stranger to the far right. Today, however, the extreme right is populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) of Herbert Kickl could emerge for the first time as the strongest force. Given the fact that national elections follow in the autumn, today’s polls inevitably act as a barometer.

The FPÖ has already won an “award”. German newspaper BILD declared his campaign poster the “most disgusting” of this election. “Stop EU madness” is the central slogan and is accompanied by black-and-white sketches of refugees on a boat, tanks, wind turbines, missiles and in the center European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hugging and exchanging a kiss.

“Asylum crisis”, “War mongering”, “Eco-communism” and “Corona-chaos”, the poster still reads. “The FPÖ is the voice of Putin in Austria”, said the MEP of the German Christian Democratic Party (CDU) Dennis Radtke, while in the same spirit the representative of the ruling Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) spoke of reproducing the “propaganda of its representative Putin, Peskov”. The Ukrainian embassy in Vienna strongly protested “insulting the Ukrainian people”.

According to the latest opinion polls, the FPÖ leads with 28-30%, followed by the Socialist Party (SPÖ) with 22-24%, the ÖVP with 19-23%, the liberal NEOS with 10-14% and the Greens with 9 -13%.

The co-ruling Greens have chosen climate activist Lena Schilling as their ballot leader. The 23-year-old “Austrian Greta”, however, instead of attracting attention to her “green” proposals, caused serious damage to the party, after the revelations of the newspaper Der Standard about incidents of defamation that reached the courts and criticism of the Green party just a few weeks before her candidacy was announced.

The party leadership’s strategic choice to dismiss the allegations and blame the revelations on rival parties and the media seems likely to cost them votes in the end. Pan-European, moreover, it is estimated that the “green” parties will record serious losses, as the interest of the voters has shifted in relation to 2019 from climate protection to inflation and security.

In contrast, the FPÖ seems unstoppable, despite the scandal involving former agent Egisto Ott, who was arrested last March on suspicion of spying for Russia. Among other things, Ott handed over to Russian services telephone records of officials of the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, when the minister was none other than Herbert Kickl, leader of the FPÖ.

Suspicions are also directed against Mr. Kickl himself, for possible tolerance, if not cooperation, with the spy. After all, the party’s relationship with Vladimir Putin’s party “United Russia” is well known. In 2016, the two parties even signed a “Treaty of Friendship”, in the context of which continuous exchanges took place, until Herbert Kickl, under the weight of criticism, recently declared it invalid and out of force.

However, the party’s positions against Western sanctions against Russia remain, along with proposals against immigration and in favor of regaining sovereignty that Austria has ceded to the EU. The FPÖ’s aggressive anti-European rhetoric is apparently no accident: in a recent survey for Der Standard newspaper, 63% of respondents said the EU is moving in the wrong direction.

Austria elects 20 MEPs and has 6.3 million registered voters. In the 2019 European elections, 59.6% voted. A total of seven parties participate in today’s elections, the five represented in the federal parliament (ÖVP, SPÖ, FPÖ, Greens, Neos), the Communist Party (KPÖ) and the DNA list, with a central theme of criticism of the measures against the coronavirus pandemic . The latter two had to gather 2,600 signatures in order to secure the right to participate in the elections. Polls close in stages across the country from 1pm (local time) to 5pm, with Vienna last.