In this photo taken Tuesday, April 19, 2016 a construction site is set up in front of election posters of Andreas Kohl, candidate for presidential elections of Austrian People's Party, OEVP, in Vienna, Austria. For the first time, Austria's next president will likely be someone who is not officially backed by one of the two parties that have dominated government since the end of World War II. That reflects massive voter unhappiness _ and spells possible political turmoil ahead. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)
In this photo taken Tuesday, April 19, 2016 a construction site is set up in front of election posters of Andreas Kohl, candidate for presidential elections of Austrian People's Party, OEVP, in Vienna, Austria. For the first time, Austria's next president will likely be someone who is not officially backed by one of the two parties that have dominated government since the end of World War II. That reflects massive voter unhappiness _ and spells possible political turmoil ahead. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)

Vienna — The law-and-order candidate of Austria’s right-wing party swept the first round of presidential elections on Sunday, gathering over 35 percent of the vote and leaving the other five candidates far behind. Among the losers were the hopefuls nominated by the government coalition, reflecting significant voter dissatisfaction with the country’s political status quo.

The apparent triumph by Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party is his party’s best-ever showing since its creation after World War II. Its previous best result was more than 27 percent in elections that decided Austria’s membership in the European Union.

With just over 50 percent of polling stations reporting into the central electoral office, Hofer was far ahead of Alexander Van der Bellen and Irmgard Griss, both running as independents and within one percentage point of each other at close to 20 percent.

Far behind were Rudolf Hundstorfer of the center-left Social Democrats and Andreas Khol of the centrist People’s Party, which form the present government coalition and have ruled either alone or together for much of the post-World-War II era.

Both were polling at 11 percent. Only political outsider Richard Lugner did more poorly, at under 3 percent.

The preliminary results show Van der Bellen and Griss in a close race to challenge Hofer in the May 22 runoff with both just under 12 percent support.

That second round race will likely be closer, with most of those opposed to the Freedom Party expected to give one of the independents their support.

Hofer’s triumph reflects recent polls showing Freedom Party popularity. Driven by concerns over Europe’s migrant crisis, support for his party has surged to 32 percent compared with just over 20 percent for each of the governing parties.

But voters were unhappy with the Social Democrats and the People’s Party even before the migrant crisis last year forced their coalition government to swing from open borders to tough asylum restrictions. Their bickering over key issues — most recently tax, pension and education reform — has fed perceptions of political stagnation.