Vienna - Austria's far-right Freedom Party beat the conservative People's Party by only 415 votes, but the two parties won the same number of parliamentary seats, official figures published yesterday reveal.
The results, issued after 200,000 postal ballots were counted, gave the ruling Social Democrats 33.15 per cent, against 26.91 per cent for both the People's Party and the Freedom Party. The two parties will have 52 seats each in the 183-member parliament, against 65 for the Social Democrats, officials said.