Conservative Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer ended negotiations with the Social Democrats on Saturday to try to form a government. He immediately announced his resignation “in the coming days”.
After the breakdown of the coalition negotiations, I (…) will step down from both my functions as chancellor and chairman of the People’s Party in the coming days and will allow an orderly transition,” Karl Nehammer said in a message on the social network X, more than three months after the legislative elections of September 29.
This unexpected decision comes the day after the decision of the liberal Neos party to withdraw from tripartite negotiations aimed at forming a centrist government. The aim was to sideline the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ, far right), which came first in the last legislative elections.
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The FPÖ had gathered 28.8% of the votes but was unable to find allies to form a government.
The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) came in second place with 26.3% of the vote, followed by the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ, center-left) with 21.1%.
>> Read also: Austrian parliament elects far-right president for first time
Threesome, never since 1949
These results led Karl Nehammer to initiate discussions with the SPÖ and Neos to form a government, but these three-party negotiations failed on Friday with the withdrawal of Neos.
The two remaining centrist parties had said they wanted to continue the work. But on Saturday, Karl Nehammer announced on X that “an agreement with the SPÖ is impossible on key issues” and that “therefore we are ending negotiations with the SPÖ.”
On Friday, President Alexander Van der Bellen called on the two parties to form a government “without delay”.
A coalition of three parties to form a government would have been a first since 1949 in Austria, where the economy is losing momentum while the public deficit is soaring.
The conservative chancellor had already warned that the coalition discussions, which began in October – initially without the liberals, promised to be difficult.
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