When Markovic joined the FPO, in 2006, Strache was looking to shed a reputation for hostility towards all foreigners, he said.

“We made an agreement with Strache to improve the position of Serbs in Austria and in Europe and in return we would vote for him,” Markovic told BIRN.

“I advised Strache to buy advertisements in Serbian media in Austria,” he said.

Markovic said the FPO bought space in the Austrian editions of a number of Serbian newspapers. Such papers – tabloids Kurir, Vecernje novosti and Vesti – are well-read among Serbs in Austria and are heavily nationalist in tone.

Markovic said Serbs in Austria had traditionally backed the dominant Social Democratic Party, “But Strache had success with the Serbian diaspora because of his tactic of spreading fear of migrants and offering the kind of rhetoric we want to hear.”

Eight years later, in 2014, Markovic quit the party, accusing it of trying to ’assimilate’ Serbs in Austria.

“That wasn’t part of the deal,” he said. “We spent 500 years under Turkish rule and they never succeeded in assimilating us. My engagement with the FPO was a deal with the Devil.”

Markovic’s change of heart aside, the FPO’s outreach paid dividends, and it was not just about Kosovo, said Vladimir Gligorov, a professor at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies.

“When you look at the profile of people who came to Austria from Serbia or [Bosnia’s] Republika Srpska, you’ll find that they support right-wing attitudes in terms of the labour market because they exclude their competitors who, according to Strache, ‘don’t fit in terms of colour, skin or faith’ into Austrian society,” Gligorov told BIRN.

The average voter from Serbia or Bosnia, he said, may be working illegally or have only a temporary work permit, “and they compete with other immigrants from other countries. So Strache’s attitude is acceptable to them and it is the main thing motivating them to vote for him.”

Ivica Brankovic, son of the Austrian Serb retiree Zivorad Brankovic, told BIRN: “In his public appearances, Strache presents himself as a politician who is against Islam, but not against foreigners who are live and work regularly in Austria. After all, he has said that he is against those migrants who do not want to integrate in Austrian society.”

Some Serbs, however, say Strache failed to keep his word on Kosovo when the party took power in 2017. That may yet cost the FPO in the next election.

“I was at his rally in Vienna and I can tell you he was very persuasive,” said Ratomir Milosavljevic, a Vienna taxi driver for almost three decades.

“When you say that the seizure of Kosovo was unfair, you touch the Serbian soul. He played that role perfectly, like a professional actor.”

Milosavljevic speculated that almost 80 per cent of Serb voters backed the FPO in 2017, though voting figures by nationality are not actually publicly available.

But, on taking power, Strache “forgot everything he was saying and how many votes he got from us, because he didn’t need our votes anymore,” Milosavljevic told BIRN.

Odd political bedfellows