(): Austrians voted on Sunday in a national election that the far-right Freedom Party is hoping to win for the first time, tapping into anxieties about immigration, inflation, Ukraine and other concerns following recent gains for the hard right elsewhere in Europe.

 Herbert Kickl, a former interior minister and longtime campaign strategist who has led the Freedom Party since 2021, wants to become Austria’s new chancellor.

He has used the term “Volkskanzler”, or chancellor of the people, which was used by the Nazis to describe Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. Kickl has rejected the comparison.

But to become Austria’s new leader, he would need a coalition partner to command a majority in the lower house of parliament — and rivals have said they won’t work under Kickl.

And a win isn’t certain, with recent polls pointing to a close race. They have put support for the Freedom Party at 27 per cent, with the conservative Austrian People’s Party of Chancellor Karl Nehammer on 25 per cent and the centre-left Social Democrats on 21 per cent.

Nehammer said as he voted that “it is important from my point of view to provide stability as a responsible politician but also the political centre, so that the radicals don’t get a chance”. More than 6.3 million people age 16 and over are eligible to vote for the new parliament in Austria, a European Union member that has a policy of military neutrality. Kickl has achieved a turnaround since Austria’s last parliamentary election in 2019. In June, the Freedom Party narrowly won a nationwide vote for the first time in the European Parliament election, which also brought gains for other European far-right parties.