Austria Shifts To The Right As It Elects A 31-Year-Old Conservative Leader

VIENNA, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Young conservative star Sebastian Kurz is on track to become Austria’s next leader, projections of Sunday’s parliamentary election result showed, but his party is well short of a majority and could seek an alliance with the far right.

Kurz, who is just 31, campaigned on an anti-immigration platform so strict that the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) accused him of plagiarism. That appears to have succeeded in drawing some voters away from the FPO two years after Austria was swept up in Europe’s migration crisis, which boosted the FPO in polls.

Kurz’s People’s Party (OVP) is in the lead on 30.5 percent, with its current coalition partner, the Social Democrats, on 26.2 percent, just behind the FPO on 26.8 percent, a projection by pollster SORA said shortly after polls closed, based on an early count of 49 percent of non-postal ballots.

Seems like we’re going to be partying like it’s 1939 again soon.

huffingtonpost.com