Austria conservatives projected to win snap poll amid far-right losses

Vienna, Sep 29 (AFP) Austria's 33-year-old former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz was on course to win snap elections Sunday despite a scandal which engulfed his previous far-right allies, projections showed Sunday. Kurz's centre-right People's Party (OeVP) took 37 per cent of the vote, according to first projections.

His erstwhile coalition partners, the scandal-hit far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), meanwhile, dropped from almost 26 per cent at the last election to around 16 per cent. The election was triggered by a corruption scandal which engulfed the FPOe in May and brought down the OeVP-FPOe coalition.

The centre-left Social Democrats look set for their worst-ever result on around 22 per cent of the vote. The Greens are the other big winners, reversing a disastrous performance in 2017 which saw them fail to enter parliament to win at least 13 per cent this time round, which would be their best-ever score.

The small liberal NEOS party scored around seven percent. (AFP) IND IND