Former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, 33, looks certain to reclaim his position as the youngest leader in the world after his conservative People’s party (ÖVP) secured 37.1% of the vote – its best result since 2002.
Support for Austria’s Freedom party (FPÖ) got more than a third of his votes as the far-right group was punished in Austrian national elections.
The election had been called for a corruption scandal that brought down the government.
The Green party was the other big winner on Sunday, achieving its best result at national elections with 14%. The centre-left Social Democratic party (SPÖ) plummeted to a historically low 21.7% but was still the second-biggest party.
The FPÖ – whose former leader Heinz-Christian Strache had resigned back in May after a covertly filmed video showed the then vice-chancellor offering lucrative public contracts in exchange for campaign support to a woman he believed to be the niece of a Russian oligarch – came third with 16.1%, a drop of about 10 percentage points.
Austria has been led by a caretaker government headed by the constitutional lawyer Brigitte Bierlein, after Kurz became the first chancellor in the country’s modern history to be removed from office by a a no confidence vote.
