Austria's Election: Possible Scenarios

Austria holds snap general elections on Sunday, with polls suggesting that Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, 31, and his centre-right People's Party (OeVP) will come first with around 33 percent of the vote

VIENNA, , (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Oct, 2017 ) :Austria holds snap general elections on Sunday, with polls suggesting that Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, 31, and his centre-right People's Party (OeVP) will come first with around 33 percent of the vote.

The Social Democrats (SPOe) of Chancellor Christian Kern, 51, are battling for second place against the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) led by Heinz-Christian Strache, 48, for around 25 percent of the vote, followed by several smaller parties.

Most experts say that, if the results are as predicted, Kurz will likely form a coalition with the far-right, the first such tie-up of black and blue -- the parties' colours -- since 2007 and only the third since 1945.

When the FPOe entered government in 2000 under Joerg Haider -- who praised Adolf Hitler's "orderly" employment policies -- Austria was briefly ostracised. But Europe is now more used to nationalists and the party is seen as having mellowed.

The next most likely is (yet) another "grand coalition" of the OeVP and the SPOe. The two have ruled together for 44 of 72 years since 1945. No post-war Austrian government has been without one of them.

Whether they can stand to work together again after 10 acrimonious years is unclear. Kern may have to quit, as he has said the SPOe will go into opposition if it doesn't win the election.