VIENNA (Reuters) — The long-term residents of an urban bastion of Austria’s far right shake their heads at the foreign newcomers a few days before a parliamentary election.The newcomers speak no German, hog social benefits and do not integrate well into Austrian society, they say.

“We never used to see (Muslim) headscarves, now they are everywhere. Their women have so many kids, there’s no more room for Austrian kids in the playground,” said Helena Dzmaili, 57.

Feeding off fear of change wrought by globalisation, two young and slick rightists heading competing populist parties have spiced up the campaign for Sunday’s election.

The Alpine republic hosts one of Europe’s biggest immigrant communities, with about an eighth of the population foreign-born, mostly from Turkey and former Yugoslavia.

While employment is rising in the widely affluent country, immigration mops up many of the new jobs, leaving natives <\m> especially the less qualified <\m> fearing for job opportunities.

The far right is hoping to cash in on such discontent, as it did when Joerg Haider’s Freedom Party won 27 percent of the vote in 1999 on a xenophobic platform and entered a coalition with Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel’s conservative People’s Party.

The coalition provoked brief European Union sanctions against Austria, but seven years later the far right is divided after the Freedom Party fragmented in a power struggle.

Ex-dental technician Heinz-Christian Strache, who is now the Freedom Party’s leader, and former soccer league manager Peter Westenthaler, running the Alliance for Austria’s Future, are vying for votes with sweeping plans to oust foreigners.

“They speak more directly to the concerns of little people than the main parties,” said Franz, a potato pancake vendor in Strache’s working-class Vienna stomping ground, where Muslims, Middle Eastern markets and kebab joints abound.

Jobs are only one concern of the right wing’s constituency, whose combined share of the vote is seen at about 15 percent.

Many Austrians also worry about how the largely Muslim foreigners blend into Austrian society, a central European melting pot during centuries of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

“I have something against parents who don’t let their girls have gym and swimming lessons. Freedom of religion is fine but within your own four walls. Austria is a Christian nation and it should remain so,” said Ingrid Olensky, 51, a computer worker.

The parties led by Strache and Westenthaler are the two splinters from the 2005 breakup of the Freedom Party prompted by a Strache-led revolt against Haider’s longtime leadership.

Haider formed a new party which inherited Freedom’s cabinet posts and named ex-protege Westenthaler to lead it into the next election, while Strache’s group went into opposition.

But most Freedom Party voters did not follow Haider to his new party. And with the flamboyant Haider’s subsequent retreat from national politics, Westenthaler has had a hard time differentiating his party from Strache’s group.

Polls show Westenthaler’s party may not win the four percent of votes needed to return to parliament. Strache’s party is on course for 10 percent, threatening the Greens’ position as the No. 3 party and a potential new coalition partner for Schuessel.

Immigration is the main concern of Austrians after jobs and pensions, and has become the far right’s battlefield.

Westenthaler, 39, wants 30 percent of Austria’s foreigners, or some 300,000 people, expelled within three years.

“We have 1 million foreigners here <\m> ten to 12 percent of our population. Such a small nation can’t tolerate that. We must avert social tensions and violent excesses like in France’s suburbs or German schools,” he told Reuters in an interview.

Strache demands a total halt to immigration, a foreigners police force with special powers, a new ministry for repatriating foreigners, review of citizenships already granted and a freeze on building permits for mosques.

“Stopping mass immigration is the order of the day now. We don’t need to import criminals,” Strache told reporters. Strache and Westenthaler have also waged personal war, accusing each other of being bogus copycats of Haider.

Other party leaders accuse the parties of fanning racial hatred. Immigration groups have filed court complaints against the two rightist parties for incitement and defaming religion.