Under its leader Heinz-Christian Strache, the right-wing populist Freedom Party has become a force to be reckoned with in Austrian politics. It is currently neck and neck with the country's two largest mainstream parties in the polls. Meanwhile the governing Social Democrats are struggling to reconnect with ordinary voters.

They aren't actually that far apart, the chancellor and his adversary -- at least in geographical terms. While Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann runs the country from the Federal Chancellery on Vienna's Ballhausplatz square, Heinz-Christian Strache meets with visitors five minutes away, at his office in a palace, which has a view of the city's rooftops.

The leader of the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), Strache has steel-blue eyes and looks dashing in a dark suit. He is not someone who shies away from selling pipe dreams as prophecies. "As chancellor," he promised in June, he plans "not to do everything differently" but to "improve many things."

In his choice of words, Strache sounds out of touch with reality. Given that he is the nightmare of Austria's major parties, the center-left Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO) and the center-right Austrian People's Party (OVP), who does he intend to govern the country with? "That'll work itself out," he says. "After the next elections, different people will be in charge" in the SPO and the OVP.