AUSTRIANS voted today in a national election in which the far-right Freedom Party has tapped into public concerns about immigration, inflation and the war in Ukraine.

Herbert Kickl, a former interior minister who has led the Freedom Party since 2021, was hoping to become Austria’s new chancellor, with results expected after the Morning Star went to print.

Mr Kickl has used the term “Volkskanzler,” or chancellor of the people, a term used by the Nazis to describe Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.

Final polling showed a tight race, with support for the Freedom Party leading at just 27 per cent, closely followed by the conservative Austrian People’s Party, indicating Mr Kickl would need to form a coalition, though many of his opponents have said they will not work under his administration.

In its election programme, his party called for the “remigration of uninvited foreigners,” to achieve a more “homogeneous” nation by tightly controlling borders and suspending the right to asylum via an “emergency law.”

In June, the Freedom Party won a nationwide vote for the first time in the European parliament election, which also brought gains for other European far-right parties.