Austria shifts to right in poll that empowers nationalists

Bloomberg

Austrian voters gave 31-year-old conservative Sebastian
Kurz a mandate to form a new government in an election on Sunday, setting up a potential coalition with the nationalist Freedom Party, according
to projections based on partial returns.
Kurz’s People’s Party took
as much as 31 percent of the vote, with the Freedom Party polling as much 27.6 percent, according to separate projections by two polling gro-
ups. Both showed Chancellor Christian Kern’s Social Democrats in third place with about 26 percent.
Though absentee and
mail ballots have yet to be counted, the projections suggest that the anti-immigration Freedom Party will return
to government in Austria for the first time since 2005 and a decade of Social Democratic rule will end. That’s after its candidate almost won the
country’s presidency, a mostly ceremonial post, in a run-off vote last year.