The chances of Austria having a far-right head of government for the first time since 1945 have become feasible this weekend, after unsuccessful attempts to form a Government that left Herbert Kickl’s ultra FPÖ party, winner of the September elections, out of power.
The president of the country, the progressive Alexander van der Bellen, who has never hidden his reluctance to accept Kickl in the position of federal chancellor, announced this Sunday that he will receive the ultra leader this Monday.
“Voices have weakened within the (conservative party) ÖVP that ruled out cooperation with Kickl”tFollowing the withdrawal of Karl Nehammer – acting federal chancellor – as president of the formation, the head of state said in a brief televised appearance from the Hofburg Palace, seat of the presidency.
Events have accelerated since last Friday, when the small Neos (neoliberal) party announced that abandoned ongoing negotiations with conservatives and social democrats on a tripartite coalition.
That was the option favored by the president, who then urged conservatives and social democrats to continue negotiating an agreement even though they would only have a very narrow majority in Parliament, 92 of the total 183 seats.
They have not been able to bridge their differences
However, late on Saturday, the two traditional parties acknowledged, amidst mutual accusations, that they have not been able to bridge their programmatic differencesespecially on the formulas to reduce the excessive budget deficit.
“We are ending the negotiations with the SPÖ (Social Democratic Party) and will not continue them,” said the outgoing Federal Chancellor, Karl Nehammer, in a video published on X in which he simultaneously announced his resignation.. “I will leave my position as chancellor and leader of the ÖVP in the coming days and I will allow an orderly transition,” declared the politician, who in 2021 succeeded his co-religionist Sebastian Kurz in both positions, who in turn resigned in the midst of a corruption scandal.
The turn of the conservatives
In an extraordinary and urgent meeting, the leadership of the conservative party This Sunday he named Christian Stockeruntil now general secretary of the formation, as its interim president, replacing Nehammer, and has thus expressed his willingness to negotiate a coalition with the ultras.
“I hope that the leader of the most voted party receives the task of forming a future government,” Stocker declared to the press after his appointment, minutes after the country’s president announced that he would receive Kickl.
Van der Bellen has not said whether he planned to commission the ultra politician the corresponding negotiationslimiting itself to insisting that the future Executive must have “a solid majority, of more than 50% (of the seats) in Parliament.”
A failed cordon sanitaire
Furthermore, after being “surprised” and “disappointed” by the failure of the attempt to form a Government, the president has promised that he will continue to ensure respect for “the fundamental pillars of democracy and the rule of law”, including the separation of powers and freedom of the press, as well as the republic’s pro-European orientation.
Although the law leaves the head of state free to choose whoever is in charge of forming a government, the traditional practice until now has been to give the mandate to the leader of the party with the most votes. For not having done it from the beginning, Kickl accused Van der Bellen of ignoring the will of the voters and blamed him for the “chaos” generated by his desire to establish a cordon sanitaire to keep the FPÖ out of power.
In a statement, this Saturday he called “logical, but too late” Nehammer’s resignation, and has considered that the head of the Social Democrats, Andreas Babler, should also resign. “With Nehammer, Babler and Van der Bellen also failed. They were the architects of the alliance of losers and now they face the rubble of their strategy to stop Kickl,” wrote the ultra politician, former Minister of the Interior.
Van der Bellen had directly given Nehammer the task of forming a new Executive, overlooking the winner, Kicklafter verifying that he did not have possible partners to lead a coalition with a solid parliamentary majority, since despite his victory he occupies 57 of the 183 seats in Parliament.
Be that as it may, Kickl is now in a comfortable position, since the only alternative to an agreement with the ÖVP that would make him head of Government would be early elections, and the polls They predict a new and more pronounced victory, with close to 35% of the votes, compared to the 28.8% he obtained in September.
Thus, the FPÖ, one of the oldest far-right parties in Europe, founded after the Second World War by former Nazi hierarchs and sympathizers, He could lead a national government for the first time, since although he has already come to power on several occasions, until now he has done so only as a minority partner in a coalition led by the conservatives.
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