Austria Turns Right

In an election on Sunday, Austrian voters turned to the right. The New York Times reports the incumbent Socialists came in third.

Nearly 58 percent of Austrians who voted cast ballots for center-right or far-right parties, with the far-right Freedom Party running neck-and-neck for second place with the establishment center-left. But the theme of the election was identity — anti-immigration and anti-Islamization — with the charismatic winner, Sebastian Kurz, just 31, tellingly absorbing much of the far-right’s agenda to transform his once-mainstream conservative People’s Party.

After the far-right AfD party made the biggest gains in recent German elections, the Austrian result suggests the German-speaking world is moving rightward, along with the neighboring Hungarians and Poles. Very clearly opposition to mass immigration is the key issue driving the rightward movement.