Austria’s next chancellor is expected to be the youngest leader in the EU

By THE DATA TEAM

SEBASTIAN KURZ left university six years ago. He was just 27 when he was named Austria’s foreign minister in 2013. Now he is on the verge of becoming the country’s chancellor, at 31 the youngest head of government in the world. Mr Kurz is set to join a cadre of comparatively youthful leaders in the European Union. Ten years ago their average age was 55, and the youngest—Fredrik Reinfeldt, then the prime minister of Sweden—was 42. The average is now two and a half years younger, and Mr Kurz would be the fourth thirty-something, at least until Emmanuel Macron of France turns 40 in December.

Mr Kurz may be even more precocious than his French counterpart. Unlike Mr Macron, however, he will have to work within the confines of a parliamentary system in which seats are allocated by proportional representation. In the latest projections, Mr Kurz’s centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) is on about 32%, up eight percentage points from the last election. The Austrian Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), which currently leads a “grand coalition” of the two largest parties, is flat on about 27%, and the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) is up more than 5 points to 26%.

As the leader of the largest party, Mr Kurz (known as the Wunderwuzzi or “whizz kid”) will have the first shot at forming a government. Another grand coalition is unlikely. Relations between the ÖVP and SPÖ were terrible even before the election campaign. They deteriorated further in the weeks leading up to the vote, as the two parties accused each other other of dirty tricks. For example, outside consultants for the SPÖ set up Facebook pages attacking Mr Kurz that contained racist content, though the SPÖ says it had no knowledge of that effort.

Given this animosity, the most likely outcome is an ÖVP-FPÖ government. The fresh-faced Mr Kurz has promised reforms to promote competition in the economy and streamline the state. Nonetheless, he shares the FPÖ’s hard line on immigration and multiculturalism. Liberals might have breathed a sigh of relief at the far-right party’s third-place finish, but it is still poised to wield formidable power in Mr Kurz’s government.

More analysis of the Austrian election results is available on our Kaffeeklatsch blog.