A Normal(ised) Far-Right Party? A Long-Term Perspective on the FPÖ’s Electoral Strength in Austria

The normalisation of far-right parties has become a central focus in current debates on their electoral strength. The Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) is one of the far-right parties that have most frequently participated in national government. The rise of the FPÖ to becoming Austria’s most-voted-for party in 2024 came half a decade after the infamous ‘Ibiza-gate’ scandal, in which former party leader, and then Austria’s deputy head of government, Heinz-Christian Strache was caught on camera, heavily drunk, discussing shady deals with a woman he believed to be the niece of a Russian oligarch. The FPÖ was kicked out of government and started to lose at the ballot box. How, then, can we understand the party’s quick resurgence? What accounts for its major long-term relevance in Austrian politics? This article provides analysis of the major long- and short-term developments of one of the most ‘normalised’ far-right parties in European politics—and one of the most electorally successful.

Enduring integration instead of a cordon sanitaire

While the FPÖ has been electorally successful since the late 1980s, the party’s history is much longer. After 1945, ‘post-fascist’ forces in Austria quickly returned to the political stage. Ahead of the 1949 national election, the far-right received a helping hand from social democrats, who supported the foundation of a party gathering former Nazis, attempting to split the vote on the right. In 1949, the FPÖ predecessor—the Federation of Independents (VdU)—was established and, in its first general election, it won 11.7 per cent of the vote. The VdU became the FPÖ in 1956.

In 1970, the FPÖ became pivotal in government formation in support of the SPÖ. Bruno Kreisky, a socialist from a secular Jewish background who was forced to flee Austria after the Anschluss, became chancellor. During the 1970 campaign, the ÖVP targeted him with antisemitic dog whistle rhetoric. Both his SPÖ and the FPÖ had a long-term interest in a more proportional electoral system, which became their common project. For the SPÖ, the year-long cooperation clearly paid off: from 1971 to 1983, Kreisky governed with an absolute majority—a period widely regarded as highly successful in terms of both the liberalisation and social democratisation of society. Similarly, in 1999, the FPÖ became the second strongest party, gaining 415 more votes than the ÖVP. After its historic defeat, the ÖVP deliberately sabotaged the negotiations with the SPÖ, which was the most-voted-for party, and instead agreed on a coalition with the FPÖ. In exchange, ÖVP leader Wolfgang Schüssel became head of government. In both cases, it is evident that mainstream parties gained specific advantages from cooperating with the far right. In fact, Austrian mainstream parties have cooperated strategically with the far right on many occasions from when the VdU was founded in 1949.

The Austrian general election of 2024

In the Austrian general election in September, the FPÖ received 28.8 per cent of the vote, for the first time winning a relative majority in parliament. The FPÖ’s electoral victory reflected patterns that are established in the analysis of far-right politics. Immigration was the key motive for the party’s voters: 69 per cent of them mentioned immigration as a highly discussed issue, followed by inflation (62 per cent), as well as crime and protection from terrorism (53 per cent). The FPÖ particularly won support from those who had voted for the ÖVP in 2019—back then, running on an anti-immigration campaign—or abstained. In addition, the long-term negative impact of the Covid- 19 pandemic on trust in government politics should not be underestimated. In a regional election in 2023, the FPÖ gained strongly in municipalities that had a lower share of vaccinated individuals. In 2024, the Covid-19 pandemic was still mentioned as a highly discussed topic by 34 per cent of FPÖ voters. Importantly, though, the FPÖ’s result in the 2024 general election was not significantly higher than what the party received in 1999 (26.9 per cent). In 2024, amid a more fragmented party system that reflects the strength of the far-right as much reflects as the weakness of its competitors, this result was enough for the FPÖ to secure a relative majority.

After the election: between exclusion and normalisation

Ahead of the vote, given the widespread expectation of a strong FPÖ result, the question of inclusion in government had once again become urgent. The ÖVP and SPÖ ruled out any coalition with the FPÖ. After the election, and despite the FPÖ’s plurality, the ÖVP, SPÖ and the liberal NEOS attempted to negotiate Austria’s first three-party coalition government since 1947. In January 2025, however, NEOS walked away from the negotiation table, which eventually led to talks between the FPÖ and the ÖVP. These, in turn, also broke down and the ÖVP, the SPÖ and the NEOS finally formed a new government in March 2025. Still, the developments after the election underline how fragile any exclusion of the FPÖ by mainstream actors in Austria is and, at the subnational level, the FPÖ is now part of regional government coalitions in five of Austria’s nine federal states.

Conclusion

Austria highlights the long-term challenges posed by the far-right. From the 1980s to the 2000s, the FPÖ’s strength might have been exceptional in an international context, but, by now, the case of Austria has become a ‘normal’ one in European politics and beyond. Currently, the FPÖ, although the largest party in parliament, has had to remain in opposition after coalitions with the ÖVP collapsed. At a time of far-right success in Europe and northern America, the case of Austria at least shows that far-right forces sometimes strategically blunder from a position of strength. However, failed government negotiations have not hurt the party: in the first half of 2025, nationwide surveys consistently showed support for the FPÖ to be over 30 per cent. The Austrian case may point to the inconvenient truth that far-right normalisation has become an affair practised by key representatives of the mainstream beyond the right.