A historic victory, but with a strong touch of bitterness. In front of his supporters gathered in a brasserie on the campus of the University of Vienna, Herbert Kickl, the leader of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ, far right) celebrated, on Sunday September 29, “a piece of history” after his unprecedented score in the legislative elections, but recognizing that this could be without future in the face of adversaries “who act as if the elections had not taken place” by maintaining their refusal to form a coalition with him.
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“I give them two or three days to think. Let’s hope they come to their senses. It would also be in their own interest”launched the very radical leader of the FPÖ to the crowd with this threatening tone of which he has the secret. With 28.8% of the vote, Mr. Kickl achieved the best score ever obtained by the far right since 1945 in Austria, triggering a political earthquake in this country of nine million inhabitants. But this former interior minister is by no means certain of coming to power, as all the other parties do not want to ally with him in the National Council, the lower house of the Austrian Parliament.
This victory reveals the radicalization of a whole part of the Austrian electorate against a backdrop of record inflation, high immigration and growing skepticism about the evolution of the war in Ukraine. Since taking the helm of the party in 2021, Mr. Kickl has made the FPÖ adopt a deeply conspiratorial, anti-vax, climate skeptic and identity-based discourse. “Covid played a big role, the FPÖ was the only party against mass confinement and compulsory vaccination”greets Heimo Lepuschitz, a long-time party communicator, who was part of the guest list on Sunday evening.
A “bitter” result for the conservatives
Very close to the radical line of the German AfD, the FPÖ no longer even suffers from scandals over its links with its Nazi past, while several party executives were filmed attending a funeral during which sang an SS anthem, just two days before the election. Advocating in its program the “remigration” strangers and naturalized people, “when they attack our values”, and to give back to the Austrians their “homogeneity”Mr. Kickl assures that he counts “stop all asylum requests”.
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Coming second with only 26.3% of the vote, the outgoing chancellor, the conservative Karl Nehammer, recognized that the result was « amer » estimating that “our duty is to understand why the radicalized received more votes than us”. His formation, the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), fell by more than 11 points compared to the 2019 election. Embodying the traditional Christian-democratic wing of the party, Mr. Nehammer, however, once again ruled out allying with Mr. Kickl he considers “lost in conspiracy theories”.
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