Sebastian Kurz is set to become the next chancellor of Austria and, at 31, the world’s youngest leader after North Korea’s Kim Jong Un (33) and Ireland’s Leo Varadkar (38).
Known as “Wunderwuzzi” (roughly translated as “one who can walk on water”), Kurz won Austria’s general election Sunday with about 31 percent of the vote.
He took over as leader of the center-right People’s Party (OVP) in May and quickly rebranded it and introduced a more extremist stance on immigration.
“Mr Kurz used his personal popularity and his rebranding of the OVP to push the party into first place,” Pepijn Bergsen, Austria analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit told CNBC Monday.
Bergsen said that the mainstream parties, OVP and its socialist opponent SPO, had stopped attracting voters in recent years. “Mr Kurz has tapped into frustrations around this and around the European migrant crisis by emulating much of the FPO’s (far-right) platform,” he said.
Upon becoming leader, Kurz rebranded the conservative party as “the new” People’s Party and changed its traditional black color scheme to a more modern blue.
He shifted the OVP more towards the right, with some accusing him of “stealing” policies from the far-right Freedom Party.
Kurz said Sunday that he will wait for the final results, due October 31, before negotiating with other parties and forming a coalition government. Many political commentators expect him to join forces with the Freedom Party.
“This will not be the first time that the FPO has been in power,” Bergsen noted.
Kurz was born in Vienna and left his law studies to become a politician. He led the young branch of the OVP in 2009 and was appointed foreign minister in 2013.
In that role, he supported blocking migrant routes to Europe, a ban on the hijab (full face veil) and benefit cuts for EU migrants living in Austria.
“The strong performance of FPO is likely to bring a tough stance on migration to the European debate,” Barclays said in a research note Monday.
Bergsen, from the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC: “The coalition is likely to push immigration and integration policy further to the right,” adding that Kurz will actively push for strengthening Europe’s outer borders and screening asylum seekers outside the European Union.
“This is likely to lead to more tensions with other EU members and Austria is likely to move closer to the Visegrad 4 states (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) within the context of the EU,” Bergsen said.
“However, EU membership is not likely to be questioned; Mr Kurz makes a point of doing his announcements in front of both an Austrian and EU flag.”
Source: cnbc
Millennial in Austria set to become the world’s youngest leader