According to the first projections published by Austrian news agency APA after polling stations closed at 5 p.m.
local time on Sunday, the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPOe) got 28.6 percent of the vote and will remain the largest party in parliament.
The conservative Austrian People's Party (OeVP) will get 25.2 percent -- the worst result in the party's history.
Two far-right parties, however, were the big winners in the election. The the far-right Freedom Rebounding right ...
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As many Austrians are disappointed in the OeVP and the SPOe that had formed a government coalition since early 2007, polls ahead of Sunday's early elections had already shown that parties on the far right were set gain most in the early elections.
Low voter turnout
Inofficial reports from six of the country's nine provinces indicated a slightly lower voter turnout than in the last elections in 2006, when participation fell to a record low of 78.5 percent.
When the OeVP quit as junior coalition partner of the SPOe in July and called for elections, OeVP leader and Vice Chancellor Wilhelm Molterer was polled to beat the new SPOe top candidate, Transport Minister Werner Faymann.
Molterer focused on law and order and immigration issues, while Faymann banked on people's worries about inflation, with some polls before the elections giving him a narrow margin.
Far-right profits
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Faymann (rights) has good chances to succeed current Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer (left) Besides proposing measures against inflation, which stood at 3.7 percent in August, Austria's two rightist parties focused on the political standstill in the coalition between Social Democratic Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer and Molterer.
Gusenbauer resigned as party chief this summer amid low approval ratings and is not running for parliament on Sunday.
Heinz-Christian Strache's FPOe and Joerg Haider's BZOe also campaigned against immigrants and asylum seekers, often portraying them as criminals.
No escape from grand coalition?
Although Austria's 6.3 million eligible voters will learn the early election result on Sunday evening, it might take weeks or months of coalition negotiations among parties to determine who is included in the cabinet.
Both Social Democrats and conservatives are not keen on another round of cooperation, but they might have few other options, as they have vowed not to govern with the far right.
The Greens were foreseen gaining around 10.1 percent of the vote, not enough to form a majority in parliament with either SPOe or OeVP. The Liberal Forum is fighting to re-enter parliament for the first time since 1999.
(Deutsche Welle)
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