- The Austrian election 2017 is now underway with voting open across the country.
- Sebastian Kurz of the Austrian People’s Party (OVP) is tipped to become chancellor at just 31 years old.
- The Austrian People’s Party has consistently led polls since Mr Kurz took over as leader.
- The Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) is expected to come in second place and enter into a coalition with OVP.
- Heinz Christian-Strache, FPO leader, would then become vice chancellor.
- The Social Democratic Party (SPO), led by current chancellor Christian Kern, is set to come in third place.
- Polls close at 4pm BST (5pm local time) with results expected soon after.
Bringing you the latest news and live updates on the Austrian election 2017, with the final polls and results as they come in.
12.46pm: Candidates cast their votes
Sebastian Kurz has been pictured casting his vote with his partner Susanne Thier in Meidling, Vienna.
He told supporters that he is hoping for “a good result, so that real change can be possible”.
Christian Kern and his wife Eveline Steinberger-Kern were also spotted at a polling station.
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The incumbent Chancellor remained optimistic despite polls suggesting that he will find himself in third place and out of government. “we are planning a longer party,” he said.
12.30pm: Voting underway in Austria
Millions of Austrians have already cast their votes in one of the most crucial elections in the country’s recent history.
Sebastian Kurz, 31, is tipped to become Austria’s first right-wing chancellor in a decade.
His People’s Party of Austria (OVP) has topped almost every major poll since he took over as leader in May.
On Saturday, Mr Kurz told a campaign rally: “I want to put Austria back on top. I want to provide security and order, because the Austrian people deserve it.”
He has vowed to take a hard line of refugees and shut down the main migrant routes into Europe.
“We must stop illegal immigration to Austria because otherwise there will be no more order and security,” he told tabloid daily Oesterreich on Friday.
Mr Kurz looks set to form a coalition government with the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), which pollsters have put neck-and-neck with the Social Democratic Party (SPO).
The two parties have shared power before, between 2000 and 2007. Since then, the OVP and SPO have ruled in a grand coalition, which Mr Kurz broke when he took over as party leader.
FPO leader Heinz-Christian Strache has accused Mr Kurz of copying his policies and of being an “impersonator”.
OVP has pledged to close Muslim nurseries, a flagship policy of the anti-Islam FPO.
On Friday Mr Strache said: “In parts of society we are becoming a minority in our own country. Let’s get rid of this… government before the Austrian people disappear.”
Mr Strache yesterday told supporters to be skeptical about polls in a bid to improve voter turnout.
“You should not pay attention to opinion polls,” he told a rally. “You should instead go by the atmosphere here.”
Christian Kern, the incumbent SPO chancellor, has warned that Austria “is at the most important crossroads in decades”.
“Do we want an Austria where the rich get richer and where the social security system, health and education are under attack? Or an Austria where everybody has an opportunity?” he told a rally yesterday.
Mr Kurz and Mr Kern openly dislike one another, making a new grand coalition extremely unlikely.