Regardless of whether the 740,000 absentee Austrians who cast their votes in a presidential election did so in favour of an anti-immigration Freedom Party or a Green Party-backed candidate, the election campaign and the popularity of Norbert Hofer and his right-wing message is one that will send shivers through the rest of Europe.

Since last year, when Europe witnessed the greatest refugee crisis since the end of the Second World War, Europeans have decidedly turned to the right to express their frustration at the wave of mostly Muslim refugees seeking political asylum. This paranoia has led to an increase of disgusting Islamophobia and anti-refugee parties who fester and breed on ignorance, blaming the desperate and desolate — who seek a better life — for all that is wrong in western societies.

In Austria, Hofer is neck-and-neck with his Green opponent, Alexander Van der Bellen. Heading into yesterday’s final count, the two were in a virtual tie and Van der Bellen needed to capture about 60 per cent of the mail votes to win.

Hofer, 45, has pledged to use the authority of a popular mandate to weigh into the nation’s politics, breaking with decades of Austrian presidents who agreed to play a largely ceremonial role. Either way, he has fundamentally changed Austrian politics, setting the stage for a bitterly divisive general election next year.

Hofer’s rise marks a breakthrough for right-wing populists across Europe, and his party is allied with France’s National Front, whose leader Marine Le Pen failed to win office in regional elections earlier this year. The Dutch anti-Islam Freedom Party, led by Geert Wilders, and the Alternative for Germany party are also allies, with the four parties all riding high, harkening back to the dark days of the rise of European fascism. Now, it is those who have walked from the broken city of Aleppo, fled terror in Homs or ran from the murderous extremists of Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), who have become the whipping boys of these right-wing parties.

It’s all too easy for voters to be cajoled into voting for the Right. And when these populist parties peddle politics that plays on the fear of refugees in need of housing, social and medical assistance, blaming them for all that is wrong in European societies crippled by crushing government debt or by the loss of outsourced jobs in a traditional economy, it’s a formula that is hard to resist in the privacy of an election booth. And that’s Europeans’ shame.