Keystone-SDA
The Austrian president asked far-right leader Herbert Kickl on Monday to find a majority to govern, a first in the history of the Alpine country, after the failure of negotiations by other political forces.
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January 6, 2025 – 2:45 p.m.
(Keystone-ATS) In view of “the new situation (…), I instructed” Mr. Kickl, whose party came first in the legislative elections at the end of September with nearly 29% of the votes, “to lead discussions with the conservatives,” declared the environmentalist head of state Alexander Van der Bellen.
He spoke after a meeting of just over an hour with the far-right leader, adding that it had “not been easy to make” such a decision.
Although the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) has already participated in power as a minority partner, it has never held the chancellery in this EU member state of nine million inhabitants.
Before the vote, Mr. Van der Bellen had not hidden his reluctance towards Herbert Kickl, who in the past called him a “senile mummy”. And the octogenarian head of state preferred in October to choose the outgoing conservative chancellor Karl Nehammer to lead the negotiations, contrary to custom which normally reserves this right to the winning party.
But the failure of negotiations with the Social Democrats and the Liberals, followed by the announced resignation of Mr. Nehammer, a fierce opponent of Mr. Kickl, changed the situation, in a spectacular rebound against a backdrop of the rise of nationalist forces in Europe.
“Nazis outside”
The Conservatives’ new interim leader, Christian Stocker, has said he is open to talks with the far right, with both parties sharing close positions on the economy and immigration.
Austrian conservatives have already allied themselves twice with the FPÖ, in 2000 and in 2017, in a country which broke the taboo of the far right well before the rest of Europe. The far right also currently participates in four of the nine regional governments.
“The voices within the ÖVP which ruled out working with (…) Kickl have become much more discreet,” the president commented on Sunday.
Entrusting the FPÖ with the task of leading negotiations is heavy with symbolism: it is a first since 1945 for this formation founded by former Nazis and led by a man who wants to be called Volkskanzler, the “people’s chancellor” – like Adolf Hitler, born in Austria, even if he denies any Nazi references.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered Monday in front of the Hofburg Palace, the seat of the presidency, shouting “Nazis out”.
Hard line
Herbert Kickl, 56, took the helm of the FPÖ in 2021 and by playing the conspiracy card in the face of anti-Covid restrictions, he was able to forget the corruption scandals which had undermined his predecessor.
Nervous, always hidden behind a three-day beard, he opted for a hard line, opposed to the media, to LGBT+, to Europe and to the elites, far from any strategy of demonization. This former Minister of the Interior is also sparing Russia despite the invasion of Ukraine.
Small round glasses and the silhouette of a marathon runner, the former philosophy and history student also embraces his proximity to identitarians against a common enemy: Islam.
He speaks without apologizing about “remigration” – an unconstitutional project of forfeiture of nationality and expulsion of Austrians of non-European origin – and is quick to insult his opponents.
