Inflation and soaring rents could boost far right in Austrian election

High grocery and rent prices could boost Austria's far right in Austria's parliamentary election this Sunday. Only in recent months inflation has slowed down leaving prices however on a high level which is one of the main campaign topics.

"Everything is more expensive… the rent, the food, the gas for the car." Petra is one of many Austrians struggling to make a living since prices began soaring three years ago. Grocery shopping is becoming a source of despair.

Austria has been suffering one of the highest inflation rates in the EU with pasta, flour and tomato sauce now costing almost twice as much as they did three years ago.

According to a recent survey by the NGO Volkshilfe, rising prices are causing anxiety about the future in half of Austria's population.

Inflation has been a key campaign topic in Austria's upcoming election and could help the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) to victory, which - according to polls - just ahead of the governing conservatives ÖVP.

"A big part of the society is quite unhappy how the economic developments and especially how inflation developed in the last two years," says Josef Baumgartner from the Austrian Institute of Economic Research.

"The Social Democrats are using it strongly in their campaign. But I think the Freedom Party is more successful in gaining from that in the election," he adds.

Besides the far right, cost of living pressures are also turning voters to Austria's far left - the Communist Party. While they recently managed to win local elections in major cities, polls say they will play a minor role in this Sunday's national elections.

But there is some relief for Austrians who are struggling to pay their bills... Vienna's "Foodpoint" association picks up leftover products from supermarkets and offers them to people in need at a third of the original price. The goods are either close to expiration date or have small cosmetic defects.

"These are actually products that would have been disposed of," Marius Aigner, CFO at Foodpoint social markets, told CGTN.

"And we are now noticing that middle-class people are also coming to us because their income is no longer enough to cover their standard of living."

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