Initial results of Austrian snap election shows Kurz to come back

The first numbers of the snap parliamentary election held here on Sunday shows ex-chancellor and leader of the Austrian People's Party (OVP) Sebastian Kurz is a clear winner and to return to power, according to public broadcaster ORF.

The top candidate of the centre-right OVP got about 37 percent of support, which is a significant improvement compared to 31.5 percent garnered in last election in 2017.

After the announcement of the first projections, there was thunderous applause at the OVP election party with supporters chanting "Chancellor Kurz".

"I am overwhelmed and almost speechless," said the beaming winner. "Today the population has chosen us back."

Another winner of the election is the Greens, which benefited from the debate over the climate crisis and received 14 percent of the votes with the leading candidate Werner Kogler compared to 3.8 percent two years ago.

Kogler was greeted with frenetic jubilation on Sunday evening at the election center of the Greens in Vienna's "Metropol". To the sounds of "Do not Stop Me Now" and "Lovely Day," he moved into the bright room, where he spoke of a "Sunday for Future".

"From this ground we will try to be the spearhead in Europe for a fairer and more ecological world," he said.

The liberal Neos also improved by 2 percentage points to get about 7 percent of the votes this time.

The right-wing Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), however, received a big blow, losing about 10 percentage points compared to two years ago. Impacted by "Ibiza scandal" and another affair surrounding former party leader and ex-vice chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, the party got only 16 percent of the votes.

"We do not interpret this as our goal of wanting to enter into government negotiations here, but the voters did not make us strong for that," said FPO General Secretary Harald Vilimsky.

Also among the losers is the Social Democratic Party (SPO), which, according to first extrapolation, came to 22 percent from 26.9 percent in 2017.

SPO boss Pamela Rendi-Wagner said that this was only a preliminary result, but admitted "that's not what we wanted."

Polling booths opened in Austria on Sunday for the snap election in which 6.4 million are eligible to vote. In the election, 183 delegates will be chosen to represent eight parties in the parliament.