Austria knows all about aged, erratic billionaires running for public office. In 2013, Frank Stronach, an Austrian emigrant who earned his fortune as a Canadian car parts magnate, funded a populist general election campaign.
But hopes of tapping Austrian fury at the Viennese political elite fell flat and his “Team Stronach” took less than 6 per cent of the vote. Now on 1 per cent in polls, it is unlikely to run again.
Despite Stronach’s failure, Austria’s populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) is hoping for a Trump bounce for its candidate Norbert Hofer in the December 4th presidential election rerun.
Last May’s election ended with a narrow victory for his opponent, Green Party-backed Alexander Van der Bellen.
But with just 30,000 votes between the two candidates, and problems with the postal vote count, Austria’s supreme court ordered a rerun.
A first attempt in September was cancelled due to defective glue on postal vote envelopes.
FPÖ strategists are confident the Trump triumph will reduce Austrian inhibition of following the US lead to elect postwar Europe’s first populist head of state.
But Van der Bellen’s camp is confident their candidate can capitalise on the after-shocks of the Trump victory.
Latest polls give Hofer the narrowest of leads and both candidates know that victory lies in winning over the almost 200,000 voters still unsure of who to vote for, despite the longest political campaign in Austrian history.
The Trump and FPÖ/Hofer campaigns mirror each other in extensive use of social media and regular attacks on the “biased” mainstream media. Unlike Trump, Hofer – a long-serving member of the FPÖ – cannot play the outsider ticket. And unlike the US billionaire, Hofer has presented himself to voters as a moderate conservative.
In an interview after the Trump victory, Hofer bristled at comparisons to the president-elect, saying: “I’m solid as a rock and won’t change my calm style.”
While Hofer is likely to maintain his buttoned-down image, political analysts expect his party will crank up the volume in the final weeks of the campaign, with political attacks lead by FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache.
With the FPÖ now Austria’s largest political party, Strache has framed this election as a referendum on the unpopular Social Democrat-conservative grand coalition in Vienna. A Hofer victory would also boost the FPÖ’s populist allies across Europe ahead of a series of elections in France, the Netherlands and Germany.
“We don’t want a continuation of the red-black establishment system with Green help,” wrote Strache on Monday on Facebook.
On Thursday, Austrian’s presidential hopefuls meet in yet another television debate, their first meeting since Trump’s election win.
Van der Bellen is likely to draw comparisons between the Austrian and US presidential campaigns, pointing out how an FPÖ team headed to meet the Trump camp immediately after last week’s win. For Austrian voters, however, the main issues remain unchanged: the refugee crisis, unemployment, Austrian-EU relations as well as economic and social reforms.