Austria ready to elect Kurz leader at 31

THE front-runner in Austria’s election ended his campaign yesterday with a pledge straight from the Trump playbook of impactful electioneering: to make Austria great again.

“I want to put Austria back on top,” Sebastian Kurz told an adoring crowd in Wiener Neustadt, which lies an hour south of Vienna.

“I want to provide security and order, because the Austrian people deserve it.”

If the polls are right, the 31-year-old is set to become Austria’s youngest ever chancellor in Sunday’s vote.

He will also become the world’s most youthful leader, ahead of North Korea’s 34-year-old Kim Jong-un, and France’s Emmanuel Macron, 39.

In a move with distinct echoes of Macron’s rise, candidates are officially standing for “Sebastian Kurz’s List”, rather than the People’s Party. Party election material talks about the “New People’s Party”.

Kurz has replaced the party’s traditional black with a lurid shade of turquoise, but even more than the slick rebranding, analysts say the message is getting through.

‘I want to put Austria back on top – the Austrian people deserve it’

“I promise you three things,” he told his besotted supporters yesterday.

“Lower taxes for low- and middle-earners, an end to benefits tourism and no more illegal immigration.”

Mr Kurz has touted limits on immigrant benefits introduced by a regional government, where his party and the Freedom Party are in coalition as a national model.