Leading article: Echoes of a dark past

Alarm bells will ring across Europe at the news that Austria's two far-right parties have made big gains in the country's general election. Between them they have secured almost a third of the seats in parliament, less than one percentage point behind the biggest party, the Social Democrats. It is the best result for the far right in Austria since the Second World War. Austrian politics are now in turmoil.

Jewish groups have branded the far-right populist Freedom Party – and its breakaway rival the Alliance for the Future of Austria – "underground Nazis". Even if the Freedom Party has officially distanced itself from the wartime Nazis, it certainly contains many individuals who promote race hatred and Holocaust denial. Their rise in influence is a disturbing comment on the mood of today's Austria.

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If the symbolism is stark and the resonance malign, however, the practical politics are unclear. The electoral logic of the poll would be another coalition between the two biggest parties – the Social Democrats who took 29.7 per cent of the vote and the conservative People's Party, which garnered 25.6 percent. But opinion polls show that voters do not want that. The last such coalition collapsed after just 18 months, following constant clashes over everything from health and education to pensions and taxes. A renewed coalition would be similarly doomed.

The far right, mercifully, is deeply divided, too. Its vote is split between the Freedom Party, which won an estimated 18.4 per cent of the vote, and the Alliance for the Future of Austria, led by Jörg Haider, which took 9.7 per cent. The smaller party split from the larger one three years ago.

Talks on forming a new government will therefore be tortuous. The Social Democrats could try to cut a deal with the two right-wing parties. More worrying would be a coalition between the People's Party and the two far-right parties. But neither presents a cheerful prospect. For even if it can be argued that Austrians voted more out of disillusionment with the bigger parties than xenophobia, the result still reflects a widespread mixture of anti-immigrant and anti-European Union sentiment. It is a disquieting example of where protest voting can lead.