According to provisional results on Monday, the Freedom Party won 29.2% of the vote, three points more than the conservative People’s Party on 26.5%. This puts the party within touching distance of forming a government and gives Kickl , its leader, one foot in the door at the Austrian chancellery.

Although the Freedom Party’s path to power may still be blocked by a united opposition, the prospect of a far-right party possibly forming a government not only sent shock waves rippling through Europe’s establishment but also shone the spotlight on Kickl, a man little known outside his native Austria.

Born in 1968 into a working-class family in southern Austria, Kickl has spent most of his adult life toiling for the Freedom Party having neither finished university nor had a career outside politics.

He first rose to prominence in the party’s ranks in 2002 when he became script writer to Jörg Haider, the sun-tanned Freedom Party leader who had first put the party on the map when it became part of a governing coalition in 2000.

In 2005, Kickl was elected as the party’s general secretary, a position which also made him chief strategist to the new party boss Heinz-Christian Strache. Despite the post making him one of the most powerful players in the Freedom Party, it also cemented his reputation as being a “nearly-man,” destined to play second fiddle to his more charismatic colleagues.

But power came knocking in 2017 when, as a consequence of the Freedom Party becoming a junior member of a coalition government, Kickl became interior minister although his stint in office was dogged by controversy.

In 2019 Strache’s career was brought to an ignominious end by a scandal involving a video shot in Ibiza that showed him discussing underhand and shady business practices. As he left the political stage, Kickl’s star began to shine.

He tapped into resentment over Covid lockdowns, pushing an anti-vaccination line that attracted attention from voters unhappy with the political status-quo.

Buoyed by this, Kickl was elected party president in 2021, and has since fashioned himself as slayer of the European elite while at the same time invigorating the Freedom Party’s political fortunes.

Drawing inspiration from Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, he has been unwavering in his opposition to immigration, saying at a manifesto launch this year: “Our goal has to be to carve out the healthy seed of asylum from the rotten fruit of mass migration”.

He has also spoken about building “Fortress Austria” to keep the unwanted out, especially Muslim immigrants, while also opposing Austrian support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, saying it violates the country’s neutrality.

The consistency of his message, which has been disseminated successfully by the clever use of social media, is also a hallmark of his political approach.

"Not only did Herbert Kickl bring his party back to the forefront in record time, but he did so without moderating his style, which sets him apart from his predecessors," Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik, a political science researcher at the University of Vienna, told the French newspaper Libération.