APD | Austria’s Kurz secures landslide win in parliamentary vote

By APD writer Aditya Nugraha

VIENNA, Sept. 30 (APD) - Austria’s conservative politician Sebastian Kurz from People’s Party (OVP) won a landslide win in the nation’s snap parliamentary election, beating the arch-rival far-right Freedom Party (FOP).

"Today, the people have voted us back to power," Kurz said after the election held on Sunday.

Kurz's party scored 37.1 percent votes, an increase of 5.7 percentage points compared with the 2017 poll.

The FPÖ party suffered a worse-than-expected loss, down almost 10 percentage points to around 16 percent, a sign that the party's reputation may have suffered after a corruption scandal earlier this year.

"A party needs to learn from the mistakes of the past and rebuild itself," FPÖ new leader, Norbert Hofer, said.

The party has considered plans to become the opposition side in the upcoming Austrian politics.

The center-left Social Democrats (SPÖ) vote in the election dropped five percentage points to around 22 percent. It was the party's worst results since World War II.

Meanwhile, the Greens gained 10.2 points to reach 14 percent, raising the prospect of a coalition between the ÖVP and the Greens.

The Sunday’s poll was participated by some 6.4 million Austrians eligible voters.

The 33-year-old Kurz was left unscathed from the FPÖ scandal. He has yet to announce plans to ally with other party to win majority votes in the parliament.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)